Punkast

Lisa Fancher’s venerable Frontier Records celebrates 44 years of independence, its initial releases include debut albums by the Circle Jerks, Adolescents, TSOL, China White, Christian Death and Suicidal Tendencies. Two decades after this impressive string of hits, Frontier discovered Portland’s Heatmiser, featuring the great Elliott Smith. Fancher is a San Fernando Valley native. She worked at rec...

Mike Watt is an American bassist, vocalist and songwriter. He co-founded and played bass guitar for the rock bands Minutemen, Dos, and Firehose. He began a solo career with the 1994 album Ball-Hog or Tugboat? , and has since released three additional solo albums. He is also the frontman for the supergroup Big Walnuts Yonder, a member of the art rock group Banyan and is involved with several other...

Jesse Velo co-founded Los Illegals in the late 1970’s. Jesse says, “With our backs against the wall, facing an impenetrable, almost segregated Hollywood industry, we partnered with radical elements and (OSF) nuns of the Catholic church to co-found Vex, the first alternative music and art space in East L.A. We kick-started an Eastside L.A. Renaissance that brought together major world-class artists...

Nina Diaz (co-songwriter and musician/performer) made her theatrical debut in 2019 as part of The Neighborhood Band in About...Productions ’ Evangeline, the Queen of Make Believe . Now off-stage, Nina has co-written with Theresa Chavez the punk songs for About...Productions ’ 2022 premiere of Adobe Punk . Nina Diaz's musical career began at the age of 13, as main writer and front woman for San Ant...

Introducing …. a PUNKAST mini-series: Adobe Punk: the concert, Mini-Session Interviews In this introductory episode, Jessica Schwartz (Punkast host/producer) and Theresa Chavez (About Productions, Adobe Punk co-creator) discuss their unique collaboration that produced mini-session conversations with punk trailblazers about their formative contributions and ongoing vital roles in the dynamic subcul...

"I owned a record store and all of a sudden I had a record. You know, why is RF7 anything? The only limit is what you put on yourself." Join Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird as they speak with FELIX ALANIS   - singer-songwriter of RF7 and founder of Smoke 7 Records - about paving a DIY punk path in the early LA scene and reflecting on its historical importance as well as unpacking his...

“So, what does it mean to speak about punk pedagogy?” asks Prof. George Grinnell on his Punk Pedagogy website. Check out this episode (and, of course, the website linked below), to hear Prof. Grinnell share his educational provocations -- with insights on punk and settler colonialism, punk memoirs, and, crucially, critical approaches to open-ended DIY, in academia.  Bio: Dr. George C. Grinnel...

Lots of new PUNKAST content is coming soon! In the meantime... It’s here… the Punk Scholars Podcast!  Co-hosts and producers, Jessica Schwartz (UCLA) and Paul Hollins (Bolton), set out to explore the seemingly paradoxical role of punk (and punks) in the academy and break with oft-generalized dismissals by highlighting the pivotal contributions and necessary interventions made by punk scholars...

Join Jessica Schwartz in conversation with Pleasant Gehman and Theresa Kereakes , as they discuss their pivotal roles in the early LA punk scene and the importance of recognizing the LGBTQIA+ foundations of punk subculture and communicating such significance across generations. Known for their influential first-wave punk zine, Lobotomy , they have found continued success in a variety of endeavors...

Join Jessica Schwartz in conversation with Gary Leonard , acclaimed photographer of LA punk history and LA history more broadly as they discuss everything from being there to capture the nascent scene....and becoming part of LA punk history in the process...to having your work front and center in the Las Vegas Punk Rock Museum (among other notable locales and media).  Artist Bio: Gary Leonard...

Join co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird as they talk with Stephen Hill of Atomik Kangaroo about his longstanding involvement with punk, indigeneity, inclusivity, and his conceptual, performance-based practices around speaking your mind and improvisation.   Artist Bio: BIO: AtomiK:kangaroo “What is Atomik:kangaroo?” “Atomik:kangaroo found on recordings is finally here.” Has...

Join co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird as they talk with singer/songwriter Gitane Demone of the seminal deathrock band, Christian Death, to explore her wide-ranging repertoire and many issues, such as poverty, (international) touring, pregnancy, and motherhood in a deathrock band; jazz, minimalism, electronic music, experimental music, solo work, "inventing" Cabaret Noir...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz and co-host Dr. Runchao Liu (S2 E9) speak with Steven Kochones, the director of KCET's Artbound: Chinatown Punk Wars about his critical choices in portraying a crucial, yet relatively short, period of time in LA's punk history (and punk history more broadly). He also offers insight into sound design, musical placement, and editorial decisions that make the film a...

Welcome to the first episode of a Punkast mini-series:  "Free and Appropriate Education?: DIY Punks' Take on Disabilities Education Legislation."  This past Monday, October 30th, 2023 marks the 33rd anniversary of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act." Coincidentally, UCLA's Disability studies major was just announced, making it the first of UC and Cal states to offer such a...

In this special episode, Jessica Schwartz along with guest co-hosts, UCLA Librarians + Archivists Kelly Besser and Courtney Dean sit down to facilitate an intergenerational conversation among predominantly local (LA-based) punks–Tequila Mockingbird, FUPU (Fuck U Pay Us; Jasmine, Tianna, Urhuru), and mirrored fatality (mango + samar).  Featured Songs  mirrored fatality - “Utopia” Fuck U P...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz talks with Dr. Runchao Liu about the LA Chinatown Punk Scene, sensationalist media interventions, and the often blurry line between appreciation and appropriation. We also discuss questions about her work on "badness" with respect to punks and Asians, countering the problematic stereotype of the model minority, and how punk has been part of the violence it often d...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird talk with Mat Gleason of Coagula Art Journal and Al's Bar about 'punk literacy,' critical 'evisceration,' astrology, and managing one of the best-known punk spaces of early LA punk. Here's his bio:  Mat Gleason is best known for founding and publishing Coagula Art Journal, a critical slam of the pretensions and personalities of the art...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz talks with Barry Seidel of the Hong Kong Café about how his life and career in music led to his pivotal role in the LA punk scene and, of course, the Chinatown Punk Wars.  Songs & sound clips  Fear - Foreign Policy The Plugz - Electrify Me The Germs - Richie Dagger’s Crime The Alley Cats - Nothing Means Nothing Anymore The Dead Kennedys - Live at Hon...

Coming at you from the sunny mean streets of Hollywood in hot new technicolor vision  Lovers of dreams, loud guitars, mountains, that silver moth dust, cracked sidewalks, motel ritual magick, we are everyone, everything, you, us.... In this episode, Jessica Schwartz and Tequila Mockingbird speak with Sean Paul Lampon, aka Sean Shimmer, of the band, Shimmer Bed, to explore musical creativity a...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz speaks with Evan Rapport, an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at The New School. He is the author of Damaged: Musicality and Race in Early American Punk (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) and Greeted with Smiles: Bukharian Jewish Music and Musicians in New York (Oxford University Press, 2014), about the musical life of Jewish immigrants from Central Asi...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz speaks with the founders of Colectivo Archivo Contracultural Uruguay (the Countercultural Archive of Uruguay, CAC): Allie da Silva Srulowitz and Eugenio Amen. CAC is a collective focused on the recovery, preservation, digitization and access to the different materials that emerged from the Uruguayan underground countercultural scene of the 1970s to 2000s. CAC prom...

“Punk music finds life in one of L.A.’s oldest adobe homes in this original theaterwork. Set in the early 1980s in working-class Bell Gardens, three young punk musicians, from disparate cultures, squat in a vacant house. Inspired by the bands X, the Minutemen, and the Bags, the trio builds its punk songbook and a life-size zine, as they define their artistic identity and find their place in the mu...

In this episode, Jessica Schwartz talks to Ziba Pérez (Young Adult Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library), Yago Cura (bilingual Adult Services Librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library, and owner of the small press HINCHAS), and Lorena Villegas (Young Adult Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library) about the Los Angeles Public Library's Zine Collections and Zine Club. We talk about the import...

Uncompromising, gender-queer, acoustic & experimental solo artist/ collaborative musician in Orange County, CA.  Josie Wreck is a 1st generation transgender Xicanx musician, vocalist, speaker, community organizer, DJ, and hostess of Aural Displeasure. She carved a space out for herself in the mid 00's Orange County punk, goth & art scenes by shrieking and abusing her distorted guitar...

more punk talk coming your way very soon... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.