I’ve admired the work, songwriting, and guitar shredding of musician, writer, and organizer Amy Klein for years. Amy is an incredibly thoughtful, inspiring, and knowledgeable Brooklyn-based artist and and in this episode she shares powerful reflections about building a life and vision as a feminist musician and writer and what she learned from organizing the feminist group Permanent Wave.

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Aurora Lady is a Los Angeles-based artist and visionary who is not only a bad ass feminist illustrator, stylist, glitter make up artist, and fashion designer, but one of my creative guides. In this conversation we talk about zines as educational building blocks for feminism, discovering punk when we lived in rural places, forging feminist community via Live Journal and how that’s different than Instagram today, making friends in LA (or anywhere) as an adult, and how we “signaled” our feminism and relationship to Riot Grrrl as teenagers and twenty-somethings through fashion, as well as the radical influence of Courtney Love.

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Corinna Rosella of Rise Up! Good Witch is a writer, zine maker, anthropologist, herbal magic maker, tarot reader, and the host of the Rise Up! Good Witch podcast currently living in Joshua Tree. In this episode she discusses how she discovered plant medicine while living in a Portland punk house, finding Riot Grrrl and zines at the advent of the internet, the expansion and evolution of her own intersectional feminism and how that informs her witchcraft practice, resisting capitalism while building a sustainable business, and how white people have a responsibility to mitigate the harm of racism and white privilege.

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James Spooner is a visual artist, a parent of two, and a vegan tattoo artist who runs Monocle Tattoo in Los Angeles. James embodies the DIY spirit and has built his life around his punk rock values and is the creator 2003’s Afropunk documentary and is currently work on a graphic novel which is chronicles his experience growing up as a teenaged black punk in the California desert, entitled The High Desert.

Afropunk speaks to questions around how Blackness is defined and expressed and it remains a relevant as ever. It has profoundly impacted and helped shape and expand the conversation about race and punk identity and has remained a touch point for many throughout the years.

As James has continued to evolve and explore as an artist, he has stayed true to his values throughout his many projects and as a parent. As he says, “A really big, important part of the punk scene I try to impart on people now is that punk audacity to just do things without permission.”

In our conversation we talk a lot about being teenagers coming into punk, especially because that is the focus of his book-in-progress The High Desert. James’ determination to create a world for himself when he doesn’t fit in is the kind of spirit I love about punk and it comes through in his creative projects and as well as to his approach to parenting. Talking with James is to get excited about punk, and punk values, again and to see how those values can continue to inform your work, even as you move beyond and through punk.

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I’m so excited to share this conversation with Marlee Grace with all of you. Marlee is a dancer, writer, podcaster, creative advisor, and the author of the book How to Not Always Be Working. She also runs Center, an artist residency and creative space in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She will be leading a dance and writing workshop entitled Composition + Practice in the Catskills May 17 to 19, 2019.

Much of her work is centered improvisation, self-reflection, healing, growing, and charting new paths for yourself, all themes that have come into my life strongly over the past month. In this episode we talk about the power of zines and DIY in a digital era; and how to disconnect (including her great IGTV video “Don’t Let the App Get You Down”); the necessary shift from Do It Yourself to Do It Together; surviving capitalism and valuing yourself in order to be generous to others; the importance of ritual and finding harmony between many interests; and reaching beyond punk in order to bring your work and values to a wider audience.

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This episode features musician, artist, and illustrator Tae Won Yu, of the band Kicking Giant. Tae was deeply involved in and influenced by the early Riot Grrrl and do-it-yourself scene in New York, Washington DC, and Olympia, Washington, where he lived for about a decade throughout the 1990s. Tae, and his music, art, and commitment to creating community and connection have long been an inspiration to me.

In this conversation Tae thoughtfully shares his unique experience with and understanding of Riot Grrrl, including how he first met Molly Neuman and Allison Wolfe from the band Bratmobile after reading about their zine Girl Germs in Sassy Magazine. We talk about the power of community, self-expression, and the empowering feeling of creating your own scene, identity, and movement.

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Nicole J. Georges, a writer, illustrator, podcaster, professor, and author of the award winning graphic novels Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home and Calling Dr. Laura discusses discuss rock camp for girls, grunge as a gateway to punk, being part of a subculture in a small town, becoming intentional about what we do for fun and what we do for money, how getting paid for your art is a class issue, zines and intersectional feminism, the enduring influence of Riot Grrrl, and healing from punk damage.

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In this episode my guest is cosmic, femme, punk visionary Taleen Kali. Taleen is a musician, writer, publisher of the independent magazine Dum Dum Zine, and sound healer based in Los Angeles. She’s also the composer of the show’s theme music! We talk about discovering punk through downloading songs from Napster; transitioning to playing punk as a classically trained musician; the immediate, accessible power of the Riot Grrrl manifesto and its lasting impact on our lives; the cognitive dissonance of living in a NYC punk loft venue while working for a luxury magazine; the visceral feeling of building creative community in LA; the importance of print in an internet-fueled culture; and healing, DIY, and the power of sound.

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In this episode I catch up with Katy Otto, a drummer, writer, activist, and parent who hails from the Washington DC area and currently lives in Philadelphia. She has played in bands such as Del Cielo, Trophy Wife, and Bald Rapunzel and currently plays in the band Rainbow Crimes. She has also run the independent record label Exotic Fever for 20 years. Katy currently works as Director of Communications for Juvenile Law Center.

During our conversation we discuss how Katy fell in love with drums at a Hole concert, being a girl drummer “hits hard,” the administrative work of creativity, DIY touring, punk and sobriety, talking a “both and” approach to political liberation and reform, and punk, feminism, and the act of parenting.

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This episode features Doctor Lauren Jade Martin, feminist sociologist of reproduction who researches the social impact of assisted reproductive technologies. Her first book, Reproductive Tourism in the United States: Creating Family in the Mother Country, is published by Routledge. Lauren is currently Associate Professor of Sociology and coordinator of the Women’s Studies minor at Penn State University, Berks and lives in Philadelphia.

In this episode I talk with Lauren about her discovery of zines and participation in Riot Grrrl culture in the 1990s, working in feminist social services, her academic work around reproductive justice and technology, being childless as women in our 30s and 40s, and how the do-it-yourself spirit of punk continues to influence her life. We also and speculate about the Bikini Kill reunion.

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Coming soon: a new podcast that features creative conversations with artists, academics, and activists who identified with or were influenced by the punk and Riot Grrrl subcultures

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