Punkast

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.>>> Follow the show to stay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.In this episode:Jessica Schwartz speaks with writer Caroline Collett about the ways lived experience, memory, and writing shape how punk becomes cultural history. Drawing from Caroline's teenage diaries, they revisit the people, places, politics, and everyday details of first-generation punk while considering what firsthand accounts can reveal that later histories sometimes leave behind.Moving between intimate memories of punk gigs in late-1970s Britain and Caroline's contemporary reflections on the early UK and US scenes, they explore punk's different cultural and political roots, the exchange of ideas across the Atlantic, and the tension between individual experience and collective memory. The conversation ultimately asks not only how we remember punk, but what its DIY, subversive, and liberatory impulses can still offer the present and future.Caroline Collett grew up in the North of England and studied languages at Oxford University before beginning a career in television, where she wrote music news for MTV Europe and worked as a presenter and producer. She later worked as a publicist and copywriter for artists, designers, and architects and is now focused on her own writing. Her manuscript, What Do I Get?, brings together original teenage diary entries with contemporary reflections on first-generation punk, its politics, style, culture, and continuing significance.Recorded June 2026.Links + References:X - https://x.com/CollettWriter Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/collettwriter.bsky.social Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/caroline_r_collett/  Website - https://www.carolinecollettwriter.com/Caroline Collett on Punk Scholars Podcast:Part 1Part 2Credits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Melanie Hui – audio editing, episode notes, and audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast.Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in.

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.>>> Follow the show to stay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.In this episode:"To me, punk isn't just about a specific style. It's about a way of being."Jessica Schwartz is joined by Tequila Mockingbird for a conversation exploring punk as a creative practice, a form of cultural preservation, and a way of moving through the world. Together, they discuss the early Los Angeles punk scene, New Wave Theatre, the Punk Museum, the UCLA Punk Archive, and the ongoing work of documenting local histories that might otherwise be lost.The conversation explores DIY culture, archives, fashion, activism, underground media, and the ways punk continues to evolve across generations and communities. Reflecting on her decades of work as a musician, writer, curator, and cultural organizer, Tequila argues that punk is less a genre than a way of creating, questioning, and living on your own terms.Tequila Mockingbird is a writer, musician, curator, and founder of the Punk Museum. For more than four decades, she has documented, performed in, and championed underground culture through journalism, film, music, exhibitions, and community archives while helping preserve the histories of the Los Angeles punk scene.This conversation includes questions and contributions from students in a UCLA musicology course facilitated by Jessica Schwartz and was recorded in February 2024.Links + References:https://substack.com/@tequilamockingbird1https://shotgunseamstress.blogspot.com/2013/10/taquila-mockingbird-queen-behind-scene.htmlhttps://www.instagram.com/taquilamockingbird/https://pleasekillme.com/taquila-mockingbird/Credits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Arrow Menendez – audio editing, episode notes, and audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in.

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.>>> Follow the show to stay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.In this episode:"I used to think that saying 'I don't have it' was a sign of weakness. When in reality, the weakness was not having it and thinking you do."Jessica Schwartz is joined by Jack Grisham of TSOL and co-host Tequila Mockingbird for a candid conversation about creativity, accountability, recovery, and the enduring spirit of DIY. Moving beyond familiar punk origin stories, they reflect on writing, criticism, sobriety, violence, vulnerability, and the lifelong work of learning how to make—and remake—yourself.Together, they discuss the early Southern California punk scene, the formation of TSOL, punk's myths and realities, gender expression, authorship, and what it means to continue creating across music, literature, and film. Throughout the conversation, Grisham offers an unflinching look at personal responsibility while reflecting on the ways punk both challenged and reproduced the worlds it sought to resist.Jack Grisham is the vocalist and founding member of TSOL and has spent more than four decades writing, performing, and creating across music, literature, and film. He is the author of several books, including An American Demon and A Principle of Recovery, and continues to write fiction and create new work across multiple media.Recorded April 2021.Links + References:Jack GrishamJack Grisham (@jackgrisham) • FacebookJack Grisham (@jackgrishamphoto) • Instagram photos and videosCredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Co-hosted and guest produced by Tequila Mockingbird.Editorial support: Arrow Avalon– audio editing, episode notes, and audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in.

Editor's Note (July 2026)Today we learned of the passing of Jennifer Finch.Rather than simply share the news, I wanted to make this conversation available again. Recorded live at the Punk Rock Museum during the 2025 Punk Scholars Network US conference, it captures Jennifer exactly as I remember her: generous, thoughtful, funny, and deeply curious. Throughout our conversation, she challenged assumptions, connected punk to larger social questions, and reminded us that museums, archives, and community spaces are places where we imagine different futures together.I'm grateful to have shared this conversation with her, and I hope others will enjoy hearing her voice and ideas again.—Jessica Schwartz————Original Episode Notes.Live from Las Vegas, it’s the Punk Scholars Podcast! What happens at the Punk Scholars Network conference in Vegas is now available for your listening (dis)pleasure as Jessica Schwartz interviews Fat Mike (NOFX, Punk Rock Museum) and Jennifer Precious Finch (L7, Sh!t My Rockstar Says!) with a never before heard musical collaboration to close this one of a kind interview out. Thank you to the Punk Rock Museum for hosting us. Enjoy. LinksThe Punk Rock MuseumJennifer Precious FinchFat Mike –We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 1, Episode 10 was recorded on March 3, 2025 “Live in Las Vegas” at the Punk Rock Museum as part of the Punk Scholars Network US and Canada Third Annual Conference. Ellen Bernhard produced the episode and gave the pre-podcast acknowledgments. Jessica Schwartz hosted the episode, and edited the audio and transcript, available here.

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.>>> Follow the show to stay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.In this episode:"There is this specter of demolition that, in some ways, haunts the American city."Jessica Schwartz is joined by urban historian and geographer Peter Ekman for a conversation exploring how architecture, urban renewal, and the built environment have shaped the sounds, spaces, and histories of punk. Drawing from his article Corner, Garage, and Basement: Reused Spaces and Vernacular Sounds Since the Bulldozer, Ekman traces the relationships between postwar urban redevelopment, street-corner singing, garage rock, and hardcore punk.Together, they discuss the politics of urban renewal, the sonic histories of doo-wop, garage rock, and hardcore, and the ways everyday spaces—including street corners, garages, and basements—became sites of creativity, resistance, and DIY cultural production. The conversation also considers Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., race, segregation, automobility, and the critical possibilities that emerge when architecture and sound are understood together.Peter Ekman is on the faculty of the USC School of Architecture and holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Timing the Future Metropolis: Foresight, Knowledge, and Doubt in America's Postwar Urbanism (Cornell University Press). His research explores the history and theory of cities, landscapes, architecture, and the built environment, with particular attention to sound, urbanism, and everyday spatial practice.Recorded June 2026.Links + References:USC faculty website: Peter Ekman | USC School of Architecture Link to book, Timing the Future Metropolis: https://cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501778391/timing-the-future-metropolis/#bookTabs=1Link to article, “Corner, Garage, and Basement”: https://read.dukeupress.edu/qui-parle/article-abstract/34/2/379/407908/Corner-Garage-and-BasementReused-Spaces-andCredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Melanie Hui – audio editing, episode notes, and audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in.

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.>>> Follow the show to stay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.In this episode:"I make zines and jokes and have thoughts."Jessica Schwartz is joined by zinester, archivist, and independent scholar Liz Mason for a conversation exploring DIY publishing, archives, humor, and the enduring cultural life of zines. Together, they discuss independent publishing as a creative practice, a form of community building, and a form of cultural research, while reflecting on libraries, radio, oral history, fandom, and the evolving relationships among memory, documentation, and punk.The conversation centers on Mason's Most Unwanted Zine, a research-driven publication built from surveys of zinesters and readers that playfully transforms qualitative data into satire. Along the way, they discuss fax-machine funerals, collaborative storytelling, aging in DIY culture, creative curiosity, and the ways zines continue to document everyday life while preserving voices often left out of traditional archives.Liz Mason has been publishing zines since the 1990s. Her work has appeared in Punk Planet, The Zine Yearbook, and the backs of her friends' toilets. She managed Chicago's legendary zine hub, Quimby's Bookstore, for more than two decades and is currently pursuing a Master's in Information Science with a specialization in Archives and Records Management at Chicago State University. Mason is also the creator of Caboose, co-host of the Rough Draft podcast, and a DJ at CHIRP Radio.Recorded June 2026.Links + References:LizMasonIsAwesome.comRough Draft with Keidra and Liz PodcastLiz Mason Official: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter | LinktreeLizMasonZines - Etsyhttps://www.facebook.com/LizMasonIsAwesomehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-mason-caboose-zine/Instagram: @caboosezineBluesky: @caboosezine.bsky.socialCredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Arrow Avalon – audio editing, episode notes, and audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in.