Destroy! The Influence of Punk.

Punk changed more than music.

It changed the way identity could be constructed, performed, and seen.

In Episode 6 of Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! The Influence of Punk, we explore how punk reshaped identity through image — and how the refusal to conform evolved into an extraordinary period of visual self-invention.

Clothes, hair, makeup, magazines, and photography became tools through which people could reject the identities they had inherited and construct new ones.
Image was no longer simply decoration.

It could be authorship.

Featuring:
– Terry Jones, founder of i-D, left his position as art director at British Vogue and turned his attention towards the identities emerging from punk, post-punk, club culture, and the street. What began as a hand-stapled magazine became one of the most influential fashion and style publications in the world — and a platform for successive generations of creative talent.
– Nick Knight, image-maker and founder of SHOWstudio, whose work with designers and artists including Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Björk, and Lady Gaga has continually questioned the conventions of fashion photography, beauty, and representation.
– With contributions from Spizz, Alex McDowell, and Peter Saville.

Knight was himself one of the young talents whose work was championed by Jones and i-D.

That relationship sits at the centre of “The Image in Question.”

One generation creates a space.

Another uses that space to create something new.

Together, Jones and Knight discuss punk, fashion, identity, beauty, subculture, collaboration, experimentation, technology, creativity, and the continual urge to look beyond what already exists.

As punk’s visual rebellion entered fashion, publishing, and eventually the mainstream, another question emerged:
What happens when an image created as an act of refusal becomes an image everyone wants to copy?

Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! The Influence of Punk, explores the ideas, images, and acts of resistance that continue to shape culture.

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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.

FEATURING: Russ Bestley of the Punk Scholars Network; Andrew Krivine, collector and author of Torn Apart; and graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook.

Together, they explore DIY culture, the relationship between music and graphics, the disruption of established symbols, design as a political act, and why asking “why?” may be the most important thing a designer can do. Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! The Influence of Punk reframes punk through its visual logic and asks how a language born from disruption became a tool for protest across borders, movements, and institutions.

With contributions from Peter Saville, Malcolm Garrett, Red Saunders, Terry Jones, and Steve Ignorant. Archive excerpts include Vaughan Oliver, Malcolm McLaren, Jamie Reid, John Lydon, Mark Perry, Brass Tacks, and The Great Rock-n-Roll Swindle.

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 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.

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.
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From institutional governance to cultural practice, expression is rarely banned outright. It is formatted, filtered, or redirected.
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Some voices move within those systems. Others persist outside them. Voices of Protest, Season 2 of Destroy! examines that struggle over expression.
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Featuring:
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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.
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Denise Fahmy, founder of Freedom in the Arts and a leading advocate for artistic freedom and the protection of cultural expression under political pressure.
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Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast
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Visit destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more
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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.
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Featuring:
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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.
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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.
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Follow us on Instagram @destroypunkpodcast
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Visit destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more
-
Destroy! is a BRB Studios production berightbackstudios.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.