Punkast

“Sometimes it’s actually quite okay to let go of this control … and to trust in the process and to trust in the people that you’re working with.”Jessica Schwartz speaks with Goethe-Institut Los Angeles director Luisa Rath-John and Ilka Erren Pardiñas about the making of Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50, a transatlantic collaborative project exploring punk’s continuing relationships to subculture, protest, and self-determination through locally rooted programs across the United States and Mexico.The conversation moves across the project’s transatlantic structure: Berlin band CAVA’s tour through the United States and Mexico, different regional approaches to punk history and contemporary practice, DIY as a connective principle, multilingual exchange, and the challenge of recognizing punk’s history without falling into what Jessica calls a “nostalgia trap.” Luisa and Ilka describe the deliberate effort to bring younger artists, women, queer communities, and contemporary creative practices into a project concerned not simply with where punk has been, but with what punk can mean now.Turning to Los Angeles and Tequila Mockingbird’s Punk Museum, Luisa and Ilka reflect on what the institution itself learned through the collaboration. As objects and contributors continued to arrive during installation, a planned exhibition became more fluid and community-built: walls filled through collective participation, and institutional expectations around advance planning and curatorial control gave way to trust in Tequila’s process and the people who brought the museum into being. The conversation closes by considering the relationships, collaborations, and possibilities that might continue beyond Punk@50 itself. Luisa Rath-John is Director of the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles. She joined the Goethe-Institut in 2017 and previously served as Regional Director for Cultural Programming at the Goethe-Institut Prague before taking up her Los Angeles directorship in 2024. Growing up in East Germany, she encountered punk as part of the youth culture around her and describes her connection to punk as personal.Ilka Erren Pardiñas is a Los Angeles–based publicist, music-industry professional, and founder of the independent publicity firm Fly PR. Her work spans music and entertainment, books and publishing, tour promotion, community organizations and events, and industry mentoring and consulting. For Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50, she brings more than three decades of music-industry experience and her longstanding involvement in punk to the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles project. Recorded September 2026.Links + References:Main Alle gegenAlles. Punk@50 project pageGoethe on Demand — Gegenüber - Alle gegen Alles: Punk@50Punk@50 Everyone against everything - Gegenüber - Goethe-InstitutNeighborhood Interpretive Center – entire project plus short info on Survive, Thrive or Die: LA Punk and The Poor Kids on LSD Goethe-Institut USA | Los AngelesTequila Mockingbird's Punk MuseumGerman Currents Film FestivalIG: Goethe Institut LACredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Arrow Menendez– audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. About Punkast:Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaEmail: punkastucla@gmail.comStay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.

“For me, it’s always going to be about making sure that our legacies are honored and protected.”Tequila Mockingbird joins Jessica Schwartz for a conversation about bringing her Punk Museum into the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles as part of Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50. Tequila traces the relationships that brought the collaboration into being and reflects on what institutional recognition means for a project she continues to describe not as her museum but as “our punk museum”—a community-built space shaped through the objects, artworks, memories, and stories people entrust to one another.Moving through art, ephemera, music, friendship, Punk School, and her own approach to historical preservation, Tequila considers what happens when punk’s DIY practices enter institutional spaces. Rather than treating punk as a fixed collection of relics, she describes the museum as a living “show and tell”: artists and friends bring their own materials, tell the histories attached to them, and collectively build a record of a scene that was never made by one person alone. The conversation also turns toward punk as a way of thinking—one grounded, for Tequila, in learning to say no, thinking for oneself, and preserving histories for future generations. Looking beyond the current exhibition, she reflects on Punk School, books and film projects, archives, and her commitment to building a “time capsule” whose materials can remain accessible and cared for long after the present moment.Tequila Mockingbird is an artist, journalist, producer, curator, and cultural archivist whose work has documented and preserved Los Angeles underground music and art for decades. A seminal figure in the Los Angeles punk scene, she is the founder of the Punk Museum, an immersive, community-centered project dedicated to punk history, and Punk School, an educational platform focused on punk’s histories, practices, and values. Her work across television, music, journalism, visual art, archives, and public pedagogy connects the lived histories of early Los Angeles punk with contemporary approaches to preservation and scholarship.Recorded September 2026.Links + References:Tequila Mockingbird's Punk Museum (at the Goethe Institut)Punk SchoolTequila Mockingbird L.A. Punk Museum Collection — UCLA Library Special CollectionsMain Alle gegenAlles. Punk@50 project pageThe Year Was: 1982 — Tequila Mockingbird + Annett Scheffel / dublabIG: Tequila MockingbirdIG: Goethe Institut LACredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Arrow Menedez - audio-synced transcript.Transcript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. About Punkast:Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaEmail: punkastucla@gmail.comStay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.

In this episode:“Radio…really is a labor of love.”Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird sit down with Stella of KXLU’s Stray Pop for a conversation spanning nearly five decades of independent radio, punk, and underground music in Los Angeles. Stella traces her beginnings at Loyola Marymount University in 1977 and the launch of Stray Pop in 1980, when playing punk and new wave on KXLU could still get her in trouble. From D. Boon singing an impromptu fundraiser song in the studio to the changing cultural status of music once treated as threatening or disposable, Stella reflects on what it means to remain behind the same microphone while both punk and Los Angeles change around her.The conversation moves through radio as vocation and “punk rock salvation,” the mainstreaming and commercialization of punk, Janet Cunningham’s punk casting archive, and the musicians, artists, DJs, record stores, clubs, and neighborhoods that formed Stella’s Los Angeles. Along the way, Stella considers what the city has forgotten, how underground culture moves into institutions and everyday life, and why punk remains less a fixed musical genre than an attitude—something she recognizes through a visceral response to music rather than a formula for what it should sound like.At the center of the episode is Stella’s practice of radio itself: hauling physical music into the station, annotating CDs and playlists, improvising connections live on air, and navigating the increasingly elaborate relationship between analog collections and digital systems. From reel-to-reel tapes and paper playlists to smartphones, streaming, automation, and algorithms, Stella reflects on the labor, accidents, memory, and intuition behind Stray Pop’s “eclectic disarray”—and on what live radio can still offer that an algorithmically generated playlist cannot.Stella has been part of KXLU 88.9 FM since 1977 and has hosted Stray Pop since February 5, 1980. Her decades in Los Angeles underground music also include work as an L.A. correspondent for ZigZag magazine and as a senior editor at RIP magazine. Drawing on a vast personal collection and archive, Stella continues to broadcast Stray Pop live from KXLU, where her self-described “eclectic disarray” moves across punk and far beyond it. Recorded September 2026.Links + References:Stray PopFridays 11 PM–3 AM (Pacific Time) – LIVEMondays 2–6 AM (Pacific Time) – encores from the Stray Pop archivesKXLU 88.9 FM Los AngelesLive stream: https://www.KXLU.comSpinitron playlists: https://spinitron.com/KXLU/show/190234/Stray-PopListen to recent Stray Pop broadcasts:Recent episodes remain available to stream for two weeks after broadcast. Select a playlist with the speaker icon. Because the show crosses midnight, the first hour appears under Friday’s date and the remaining three hours under Saturday’s date.Social MediaFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/stella.kxluInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/stella_kxlu/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@stella_kxluX (Twitter): https://twitter.com/StellaKXLU TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stella_kxluBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/stellakxlu.bsky.socialCredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Co-hosted and guest produced by Tequila Mockingbird.Photo Credit: Cathy MetcalfTranscript:Audio-synced transcriptTheme Music:Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.Related:Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast. About Punkast:Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaEmail: punkastucla@gmail.comStay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.

In this episode:We need to respect the scene and shine a spotlight on folks who were, in fact, laying the foundation.Jessica Schwartz speaks with art historians Marie Arleth Skov and Maria Buszek about Unruly: The Body in Punk, curated by Marie and currently on view at ARoS in Aarhus, Denmark. Taking the exhibition and its catalogue as a starting point, they ask what becomes visible when the body moves to the center of punk history—exploring unruliness, feminism, sexuality, beauty and ugliness, movement, vulnerability, and the many ways bodies refuse expectations about how they should look, behave, and belong.The conversation considers women’s often-marginalized contributions to punk histories and moves beyond familiar musicians and canonical figures toward what Maria describes through Brian Eno’s concept of “scenius”: the collective creativity of scenes, including fans, artists, photographers, designers, organizers, and others whose everyday practices helped make punk possible. Marie and Maria also reflect on the productive tensions involved in bringing punk into museums and art history without freezing, sanitizing, or separating it from the communities and forms of resistance from which it emerged.Moving through sexuality, feminist histories, disability, institutionalization, collective spaces, and embodied forms of resistance and care, the conversation ultimately turns toward vulnerability and joy. Marie and Maria consider how punk bodies can be aggressive, sexual, ugly, intimate, soft, frightened, joyful, or deliberately difficult—and how showing vulnerability itself can become an unruly act, sustained through communities in which people protect and create alongside one another. Marie Arleth Skov is a Danish art historian, curator, and author based in Berlin. She is the author of Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation (Intellect Books, 2023) and has curated several exhibitions, most recently Unruly: The Body in Punk at ARoS Art Museum in Aarhus, Denmark. The accompanying catalogue was published by Marrow Press in 2026.Maria Buszek is Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado Denver and an independent curator whose research and teaching focus on modern and contemporary art and design. She is the author of Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture and has written extensively on feminism, craft, art, and punk, including contributions to Punkademics and Punk & Post-Punk Journal, where she is an Associate Editor. Her current book project, Punk Feminisms: No Style But Strength, explores the relationships among feminist art, activism, and punk scenes in the 1970s and early 1980s.Recorded September 2026.Links + References:MarieUnruly - The Body in Punk Marrow Press – UNRULY. The Body in Punk – Marie Arleth Skov Instagram Mariamariabuszek.com InstagramFurther links/collabs: Punk Scholars Network International: Instagram Marrow Press: Instagram Credits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Arrow Menendez - audio editing 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. About Punkast:Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.Connect with Punkast:SpotifyInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.

In this episode:“A big part of finding your voice is being willing to be vulnerable and honest.”Jessica Schwartz speaks with filmmaker, artist, and writer James Spooner about Black punk, belonging, vulnerability, and the complicated work of finding—and trusting—one’s own voice. Beginning with Spooner’s experiences as one of few Black punks in the Southern California desert and later within New York punk and hardcore scenes, the conversation considers what punk can make possible while remaining attentive to racism, exclusion, and inequality within the scenes themselves.James reflects on the teenage manifesto and organizing project Earthwell, the unexpected afterlives of DIY ideas, and the making and continuing relevance of his documentary Afro-Punk. Moving through The High Desert and Black Punk Now, Jessica and James discuss racial ambiguity, passing, vulnerability, family, historical erasure, and the ways personal storytelling can create recognition across experiences without collapsing their differences.The conversation also turns toward Black contributions to rock and punk history, intergenerational experiences of belonging, and the complicated relationship between underground and mainstream culture. Tequila Mockingbird joins the conversation to reflect on punk preservation and her work developing the Punk Museum, opening a broader discussion about archives, institutions, access, and what happens when DIY histories move into institutional spaces. James ultimately returns to DIY not as a credential or aesthetic category, but as the confidence to learn a form, find an audience, and make the work anyway. This episode was recorded live with students from Jessica Schwartz’s UCLA Music Industry course, “DIY: Punk Organizing as Social Justice,” whose questions and contributions extend the conversation around access, cultural institutions, creative practice, and the relationships between mainstream and underground cultural spaces.Editor’s note: This conversation was recorded in 2023, around the publication of Black Punk Now. James Spooner’s new memoir, It Starts with Anger, was published in August 2026 and extends many of the questions explored here around Black punk, belonging, DIY culture, Afro-Punk, and the relationship between underground movements and institutional power.James Spooner is an award-winning graphic novelist, filmmaker, tattoo artist, and co-founder of the Afropunk Festival. He directed the landmark 2003 documentary Afro-Punk, is the author and illustrator of The High Desert, and co-edited Black Punk Now with Chris L. Terry. His newest book, It Starts with Anger, was published in August 2026.Recorded November 2023.Links + References:James Spooner / Spooner’s No FunIt Starts with AngerAfro-PunkThe High DesertBlack Punk NowCurrent events + screeningsCredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Conversation participant: Tequila Mockingbird.This episode includes questions and contributions from students in the UCLA Music Industry course “DIY: Punk Organizing as Social Justice,” facilitated by Jessica Schwartz.Editorial support: Melanie Hui – audio editing 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. New episodes every Friday.

In this episode:“We’ve turned out something I think that’s even stronger than what we did when we were younger.”In Part 2 of this conversation, Chris Desjardins (Chris D.) joins Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird to reflect on creativity across a lifetime—moving among music, poetry, politics, film, recovery, and the ongoing work of making meaning through art.Chris discusses his relationship to the Gun Club and Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the possibilities and limitations of political art, and why he increasingly understands punk less as a musical category than as an attitude grounded in honesty. From protest songs and cut-up poetry to the evolving sound of Divine Horsemen, the conversation considers how artists can respond to their historical moment without allowing their work to become trapped within it.The conversation then turns toward recovery, aging, depression, persistence, and creative renewal. Chris reflects on refusing to be demoralized, returning repeatedly to music and writing, publishing books, and finding ways to keep working without becoming overwhelmed by what remains unfinished. Tequila joins the conversation to discuss writing, self-publishing, film, technology—and, eventually, the value of having a pet.Chris Desjardins, also known as Chris D., is a writer, musician, poet, critic, and filmmaker best known as the founder, vocalist, songwriter, and driving creative force behind the influential Los Angeles punk band the Flesh Eaters. Deeply connected to the first wave of the L.A. punk scene, he contributed to Slash magazine and has worked across music, poetry, prose, film criticism, and programming. His musical work has moved among punk, blues, roots music, and darker strains of American music, and he has also led and recorded with Divine Horsemen.Recorded October 2020.Content note: This episode includes discussion of addiction and suicide.Links + References:Perfect Sound Forever: Chris D, Flesh Eaters, Divine HorsemenThe Flesh Eaters - Superior ViaductSlash Magazine ArchiveCredits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Co-hosted and guest produced by Tequila MockingbirdEditorial 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:SpotifyEmail: punkastucla@gmail.comInstagram: punkastuclaStay tapped in. New episodes every Friday.

In this episode:“The punk stuff that was coming out of England really excited me.”In Part 1 of this conversation, Chris Desjardins (Chris D.) traces the evolution of the Flesh Eaters from the earliest days of Los Angeles punk through the band’s many incarnations. Moving through his encounters with the Stooges, MC5, British punk, blues and R&B, poetry, surrealism, genre film, and other musical and cultural influences, Chris reflects on the eclectic materials and relationships that shaped his creative practice.Along the way, Chris discusses writing for Slash, friendships and collaborations with John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Dave Alvin, Keith Morris, and others, and the changing lineups and musical approaches behind A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, Forever Came Today, and A Hard Road to Follow. His recollections offer a window into the shifting sounds and social worlds of early Los Angeles punk and the rise of hardcore, as well as the blues, roots music, and other traditions that continued to inform his work.Chris also speaks candidly about addiction, recovery, relationships, and the ways these experiences intersected with his musical life. Looking back across different iterations of the Flesh Eaters and Divine Horsemen, he reflects on returning to music, writing with greater discipline after getting sober, and the long, complicated path that eventually brought earlier collaborators together again decades later.Chris Desjardins, also known as Chris D., is a writer, musician, poet, critic, and filmmaker best known as the founder, vocalist, songwriter, and driving creative force behind the influential Los Angeles punk band the Flesh Eaters. Deeply connected to the first wave of the L.A. punk scene, he contributed to Slash magazine and has worked across music, poetry, prose, film criticism, and programming. His musical work has moved among punk, blues, roots music, and darker strains of American music, and he has also led and recorded with Divine Horsemen.Recorded October 2020.Links + References:Perfect Sound Forever: Chris D, Flesh Eaters, Divine HorsemenThe Flesh Eaters - Superior Viaducthttps://grokipedia.com/page/The_Flesh_EatersSlash Magazine (Download via Brooklyn Vegan)Credits:Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.Co-hosted and guest produced by Tequila MockingbirdEditorial 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. New episodes every Friday.

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:“It’s an interdisciplinary space where we all get together and talk about a variety of experiences within punk.”Jessica Schwartz and Ellen Bernhard discuss punk scholarship, popular culture, and the importance of building communities around critical inquiry. Drawing on their different experiences coming to punk in the 1990s, they reflect on MTV, record stores, compilations, early internet rabbit holes, and what it meant to find punk outside the scenes of major cities.The conversation moves from personal punk histories to Ellen’s research on humor, satire, media, and punk rhetoric, as well as her work with the Punk Scholars Network US. Together, Jessica and Ellen consider how punk becomes something we not only listen to and participate in, but also study, teach, write about, organize around—and occasionally turn into plans for a Times Square billboard.Ellen Bernhard is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Georgian Court University and President of the Punk Scholars Network US. Her research explores punk, popular culture, rhetoric, humor, and satire. She is the author of Contemporary Punk Rock Communities: Scenes of Inclusion and Dedication and co-editor of scholarly collections examining punk bands, politics, culture, and provocation.Recorded July 2026.Links + References:Links: ellenbernhard@gmail.comIG: @dr.elliesoho, @punkscholarsnetwork.usCredits: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.