Show Notes
What happens when people stop performing the roles they’ve been assigned? Step outside the social guardrails. Take exception to the rules.
In E4, we look at the power of refusal: the women making noise before they were invited in, artists rejecting respectability in favor of disruption, writers recovering the voices left out of official histories, and outsiders turning noncompliance into culture.
Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! The Influence of Punk explores how punk’s real force was not just rebellion, but the courage to show up differently, louder, messier, disrupt the script, and leave the gatekeepers scrambling.
Featuring: Audrey Golden, author of “I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records” and “Shouting Out Loud,” whose work documents the overlooked women who helped shape post-punk and independent music culture. Vivien Goldman, the legendary punk journalist, musician, and author of “Revenge of the She-Punks,” a landmark study of feminist resistance through music and DIY culture. Gina Birch, founding member of The Raincoats and acclaimed solo artist behind “I Play My Bass Loud” and “Trouble,” whose work continues to challenge convention through art, music, and activism. With contributions from Celeste Bell and Ana da Silva. Archive excerpts include Poly Styrene, Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Bill Grundy, Siouxsie Sioux, Miss World 1970, Women’s Liberation, Bob Hope, Abigail’s Party, Nick Knight, Ray Stevenson, and Kurt Cobain.
Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast - Visit destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more- Destroy! is a BRB Studios production berightbackstudios.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Destroy! The Influence of Punk.
[Audio Update: We recently detected a brief audio glitch which we fixed on August 22, 2026. If you still hear the glitch or still have any audio issues with this episode, we suggest you delete the episode from your app and play or download it again. Alternatively, listen on another platform or logon through your account in a web browser. Thank you for listening.] — Punk became a visual system built for reproduction and circulation. This episode explores how its graphic language evolved into a shared tool for dissent. Record sleeves, posters, fanzines, typography, collage, and appropriated imagery created a visual vocabulary that could be copied, altered, and circulated far beyond its original context, and authorship became less important than transmission.
How does language operate under pressure? Rather than focusing on what is said, this episode looks at how speech is shaped, managed, or displaced when legitimacy is controlled. - From institutional governance to cultural practice, expression is rarely banned outright. It is formatted, filtered, or redirected. - Some voices move within those systems. Others persist outside them. Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! examines that struggle over expression. - Featuring: - Aja Monet, the Grammy-nominated surrealist blues poet, organizer, and author of “when the poems do what they do,” whose new album “the color of rain” continues her exploration of resistance, grief, jazz, and collective liberation. - Denise Fahmy, founder of Freedom in the Arts and a leading advocate for artistic freedom and the protection of cultural expression under political pressure. - Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast - Visit destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more - Destroy! is a BRB Studios production berightbackstudios.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What happens when protest enters the system it opposes? This episode follows the collision between urgency and corporate control, where visibility comes with conditions and expression meets ownership. Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! The Influence of Punk examines that tension directly. - Featuring: - Steve Ignorant, the iconic voice of Crass, whose uncompromising politics helped define anarcho-punk and whose recent work with The Steve Ignorant Band and solo performances continue to carry Crass’s anti-war and anti-authoritarian message to new audiences. - CrimethInc., the influential anarchist collective and publisher behind works including “From Democracy to Freedom” and decades of writing on direct action, resistance, and anti-capitalist organizing. - Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast - Visit destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more - Destroy! is a BRB Studios production berightbackstudios.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Set against 1970s Britain and a world in upheaval, this episode traces how youth culture, political rupture, and lived experience collided, forcing protest out of the background and into everyday life. Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! The Influence of Punk begins where dissent became impossible to ignore. - Featuring: - Red Saunders, the legendary anti-racist activist, photographer, and co-founder of Rock Against Racism, whose work helped unite music and political resistance in 1970s Britain. - Jake Burns, the highly influential frontman of Stiff Little Fingers, whose writing chronicled violence, division, and working-class life during the Troubles, with the band continuing to tour internationally. - Ana da Silva, co-founder of The Raincoats and a pioneering voice in feminist post-punk, whose work continues to influence generations of independent artists and musicians. - Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast - Visit destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more - Destroy! is a BRB Studios production berightbackstudios.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.