In the penultimate episode of season 2 of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares sit down with acclaimed historian Alice Echols, author of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Echols—who holds the Barbra Streisand Chair of Contemporary Gender Studies at the University of Southern California—unpacks how disco not only mirrored but actively shaped the social, racial, and sexual revolutions of 1970s New York City. Echols is the author of several books that have framed the way we understand the history of the 1960s and 1970s, and particularly the way music has shaped society at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race. The conversation begins with Echols’ newest research, drawn from her forthcoming book Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, which reexamines interracial activism and allyship during the Black Freedom Movement. From the Angela Davis trial to the alliances formed within SNCC and the Black Panther Party, Echols traces how solidarity both flourished and fractured across the era. Turning to disco, she considers disco’s uneasy place in Black and queer cultural history. She notes how disco was created by and for Black audiences, while also being rejected by many in the Black music industry, like James Brown, for being “politically empty.” Through figures like Nile Rodgers, Grace Jones, and Sylvester, Echols argues that disco’s lush orchestration and sensual performances reflected radical redefinitions of gender, sexuality, and Black masculinity. With musical excerpts woven throughout, Purcell and Soares guide listeners through the sonic textures of disco—its roots in funk and soul, its resistance to genre boundaries, and its capacity to move bodies and politics alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the wake of Disco Demolition Night in 1979—a cultural bonfire that seemed to signal the end of disco—something unexpected began to rise from Chicago’s underground. This episode traces the story of Frankie Knuckles, the Bronx-born DJ who became known as the “Godfather of House.” After the backlash against disco pushed the genre out of the mainstream, Knuckles found refuge in Chicago’s Black, Latinx, and queer nightlife scenes, most famously at a club called the Warehouse. There, he pioneered a new sound: blending disco’s heartbeat with gospel, soul, electronic drum machines, and experimental edits. What emerged was “house music,” named after the Warehouse itself, a genre that spoke directly to marginalized communities while later exploding into a global phenomenon. We’ll explore how Knuckles’s artistry and innovation not only kept dance floors alive after disco’s so-called death but also transformed music history. By tracing the arc from the ruins of Disco Demolition to the rise of house, this episode reveals how moments of cultural rejection can spark radical creativity. Frankie Knuckles didn’t just keep the party going—he built a new world of sound that would change the way the world dances. In this eighth episode of season two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares discuss the life and work of Frankie Knuckles with Micah Salkind, author of Do You Remember House?: Chicago’s Queer of Color Undergrounds (Oxford University Press, 2018). Micah Salkind is the Director of Civic and Cultural Life at the Rhode Island Foundation. Prior, in his roles as Deputy Director and Special Projects Manager at the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, he managed large grants and strategic artist initiatives for the City, collaborating with non-profit cultural institutions as well as its emerging artists, designers, and creative entrepreneurs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're thrilled to announce that our episode “S2.E2. Lost Women of Disco” has been named a finalist in the Best Indie Podcast category at the 2025 Signal Awards! This powerful episode dives deep into the untold stories of the trailblazing women who shaped the culture we now call “disco”, but were overshadowed by history. We are re-releasing this episode, which originally aired on July 22, 2025, to highlight this recognition and to celebrate the forgotten legacy of these groundbreaking artists. Thank you to our listeners and the Signal Awards for this incredible honor. If you haven't tuned in yet, now’s the perfect time to discover the voices that helped define a generation. *** *** Women have been central to the evolution of dance music culture since its earliest days, yet their contributions have often been overlooked. From Régine Zylberberg's pioneering work in creating the modern discotheque in 1950s Paris to Sharon White's trailblazing presence at New York's legendary venues in the 1970s, female DJs have shaped dance floors worldwide. Sharon White broke barriers as a Black queer radio DJ, finding her way into the booth at the Paradise Garage in 1975. She became the first female DJ to play at the revered Saint club and spun records at Studio 54. Her influence can be seen in later pioneers like London's Smokin' Jo, who emerged from the British acid house scene to become one of England's most celebrated DJs and the only woman to be awarded DJ of the Year in DJ Magazine's Top 100. In the second episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares welcome DJ, academic, and journalist Lulu Le Vay to explore the often-untold stories of women in dance music culture. Le Vay, who holds a PhD in Sociology from Goldsmiths and performs as DJ Lulu Levan, represents a new generation of "PhDJs" combining academic inquiry with dance floor experience. From writing for publications like The Face, i-D, and The Guardian to spinning at festivals like Lovebox and Bestival, she documents club culture from multiple perspectives. Currently working on a documentary about women DJs with director Sonja Phillips, Le Vay is also part of Love Underground, a new collaboration with producer Tommy D whose new single "The Journey Part 1" is out on Chillifunk records. Through her podcast Where Love Lives and her work preserving dance music history, Le Vay continues to celebrate the women who built the foundations of club culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On July 12, 1979, Chicago’s Comiskey Park erupted into chaos during what was supposed to be a quirky baseball promotion. Shock radio jock Steve Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night” incentivized listeners to bring disco records to a White Socks doubleheader, where, between games Dahl promised to blow them up in center field. Instead, the event descended into a riot, forcing the team to forfeit. On the surface, the incendiary event looked like a wild publicity stunt gone wrong — but in hindsight, it was tantamount to a book burning. In retrospect, the destruction of thousands of disco records was a symbolic rejection of the social meanings the sounds held, particularly for queer communities of color. The night marked not just the literal destruction of vinyl but a cultural turning point when disco’s dazzling reign collapsed under backlash. Or did it? In this episode, we explore how a stadium stunt revealed the deeper racial, sexual, and generational tensions shaping American music at the dawn of the 1980s. In episode seven, host Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares talk with Gillian Frank is a historian of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics in the twentieth-century United States at Trinity College, Dublin. He is a managing editor of NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality and co-host of the podcast Sexing History, which explores how the past shapes contemporary debates about sex. Frank’s scholarship has appeared in leading academic journals and edited volumes, and he has held research fellowships at Princeton and other institutions. His current book project examines the history of child adoption and foster care in the U.S., tracing how religion, race, and politics shaped family formation in modern America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Disco didn't just happen—it emerged from the vibrant gay club scene of 1970s New York City. In this episode, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares explore how iconic venues like the Continental Baths, the Mineshaft sex club, and the legendary Paradise Garage became part of a musical revolution that transformed popular culture. Joining them is Lucas Hilderbrand, Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine and author of the groundbreaking book The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After (Duke University Press, 2023). Together, they trace the fascinating connections between New York's underground gay scene and the rise of legendary DJs like Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles, while uncovering how these same spaces launched the careers of mainstream superstars, including Bette Midler and Barry Manilow. From intimate bathhouses to pulsing dance floors, discover how gay culture didn't just influence disco—it created it. The conversation also touches on Hilderbrand's companion archival project, The Bars Are Archived: Primary Sources for Gay Bars in America, which is available through Alexander Street's Queer Pasts collection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fifth episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares sit down with the legendary DJ Nicky Siano. The history of dance music in 1970s New York is synonymous with the life and work of Siano. He was among the early attendees of David Mancuso’s Loft dances, where he learned to organize parties and DJ for an audience. Siano transposed Mancuso’s informal gatherings to a proper discotheque called The Gallery (1972-1977,) which he co-owned and DJed. At The Gallery, Siano pioneered techniques such as beatmatching, EQing, and using three turntables to fashion a proto-disco sound through his preferred selection of funky soul and R&B records, inspiring a host of celebrated figures like Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles. The Gallery was a seminal 1970s nightclub that laid a blueprint for iconic New York clubs like the Paradise Garage and Studio 54. Siano is perhaps most well-known for DJing and being fired from Studio 54 for his unconventional methods. For Siano, music was more than pleasure. It was a source of empowerment, a refuge, and spiritual salve that has enabled him to persevere and thrive as a DJ in New York during the Seventies and beyond. In this conversation, Siano illustrates the power of music that animated his involvement as an activist in the Stonewall riots. As a DJ, Siano has maintained his belief in the capacity of music to bring people together, despite social differences, and as a healing force during the AIDs era. In this conversation, Siano traces his evolving romance with music, echoing his enduring salvo: Love is the Message. The title of this episode draws from a memoir that Nicky Siano is currently authoring, I, DJ: Stonewall to Studio 54. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1930s, musical Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton identified the influence of Latin American rhythms like the habanera in jazz, as a sonic “tinge” that fundamentally shaped his style as a stride pianist. In the Seventies, disco presented its own Latin tinge. The Latin American and Latino influence on 1970s New York disco extended far beyond the familiar narratives of the Paradise Garage and Studio 54, creating vibrant spaces that celebrated cultural fusion and community. Clubs like the Ipanema Discotheque, Copacabana, and Roseland Ballroom became crucial venues where Latin rhythms, Brazilian beats, and Caribbean sounds mixed with emerging disco to create something entirely new. These spaces, often overlooked in mainstream disco histories, were essential to the genre's evolution—places where the infectious energy of Latin music met the innovative production techniques of American dance music. The DJs who commanded these dance floors brought not just technical skill but cultural knowledge, understanding how to weave together the musical traditions of their homelands with the cutting-edge sounds emerging from New York's studios and clubs. In the fourth episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares welcome DJs Ronnie Soares and Luis Mario Orellana Rizzo to explore the Latin American contributions to New York's disco revolution. Soares, born in Brazil and arriving in New York as a teenager, became a DJ by accident in 1974 when asked to spin a Brazilian night at the French club Directoire. Though initially a dancer, he quickly became resident DJ at the famed Ipanema Discotheque and went on to create "Midnight Disco" at Roseland Ballroom—the first club in the city to hold 5,000 people. Rizzo began his career at the very inception of club culture in 1969-70, learning from DJ Francis Grasso before working at legendary venues including Cork & Bottle and Copacabana. As the first DJ to tour nationally and internationally, Rizzo helped spread dance music globally while founding Legends of Vinyl, an archival project celebrating the art of DJing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the third episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares take you on an immersive journey through the hot nights and wild streets of Lower Manhattan during the Seventies. For this episode, Jesse Rifkin, a New York-based music historian and the owner and sole operator of Walk on the Wild Side Tours NYC, designed a specialized tour for Soundscapes NYC that explores key venues in the history of disco. Clubs like Paradise Garage, Nicky Siano’s Gallery, and repurposed residential spaces like David Mancuso’s Loft were all critical incubators of the sound and culture we call disco today. This is dense cultural geography, hardly more than one square mile, within and around a neighborhood known today as “Soho”. But in the Seventies it was sometimes known as “Hell’s Hundred Acres” do to the propensity of building collapses and fires among the old hotels and loft builds that constellated the area. Soundscapes NYC welcomes back Jesse Rifkin, who appeared on Season One on the queer history of punk culture (S1.E4. Sounds of the City Collapsing). Rifkin is the author of This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City (Hanover Square Press, 2023), and his work has been celebrated in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, among others. His Substack (Walk on the Wild Side NYC) is a trove of incisive music criticism and revealing interviews with dynamic artists from the Seventies to today. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Women have been central to the evolution of dance music culture since its earliest days, yet their contributions have often been overlooked. From Régine Zylberberg's pioneering work in creating the modern discotheque in 1950s Paris to Sharon White's trailblazing presence at New York's legendary venues in the 1970s, female DJs have shaped dance floors worldwide. Sharon White broke barriers as a Black queer radio DJ, finding her way into the booth at the Paradise Garage in 1975. She became the first female DJ to play at the revered Saint club and spun records at Studio 54. Her influence can be seen in later pioneers like London's Smokin' Jo, who emerged from the British acid house scene to become one of England's most celebrated DJs and the only woman to be awarded DJ of the Year in DJ Magazine's Top 100. In the second episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares welcome DJ, academic, and journalist Lulu Le Vay to explore the often-untold stories of women in dance music culture. Le Vay, who holds a PhD in Sociology from Goldsmiths and performs as DJ Lulu Levan, represents a new generation of "PhDJs" combining academic inquiry with dance floor experience. From writing for publications like The Face, i-D, and The Guardian to spinning at festivals like Lovebox and Bestival, she documents club culture from multiple perspectives. Currently working on a documentary about women DJs with director Sonja Phillips, Le Vay is also part of Love Underground, a new collaboration with producer Tommy D whose new single "The Journey Part 1" is out on Chillifunk records. Through her podcast Where Love Lives and her work preserving dance music history, Le Vay continues celebrating the women who built the foundations of club culture. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Loft was a dance party series organized by DJ David Mancuso in his Manhattan warehouse apartment at 647 Broadway from Valentine’s Day 1970 to June 1974. The parties offered an alternative to New York’s commercial nightclub scene. The invitation-only events featured an egalitarian space for music and dance with a top-of-the-line sound system, eclectic musical selections, and a racially inclusive and gay-friendly mix of guests. Attendees included the city’s leading disc jockeys such as Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, and Frankie Knuckles, who launched their careers in next generation clubs like the Paradise Garage, The Gallery, Chicago’s Warehouse, and The Saint—  all influenced by the Loft.  In the premiere episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell introduces co-host Kristie Soares, in conversation with music and dance historian Tim Lawrence, to contextualize David Mancuso’s Loft. Lawrence is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London’s School of Arts and Digital Industries. He is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003), Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 (Duke University Press, 2009) and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83 (Duke University Press, 2016). Outside of academia, Lawrence hosts his own dance party series called All Our Friends, as well as a podcast about music history called Love Is The Message.  The opening anecdote draws from Tim Lawrence's Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On October 30, 1975, the New York Daily News printed the most famous headline in its history: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” The previous day, President Gerald Ford had delivered a speech at the National Press Club in Washington on the looming bankruptcy of New York City. In the speech, Ford publicly denied the near-bankrupt New York City a federal bailout. The next morning, the streets of Manhattan were littered with the incendiary headline.  It has been fifty years since the publication of the headline, which presents an opportunity to reconsider this historical period. In this special edition episode, host Ryan Purcell talks with Benjamin Holtzman, Assistant Professor of History at Lehman College (CUNY), about the soundtracks behind New York’s fiscal crisis. Holtzman is the author of The Long Crisis: New York and the Path to Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2023), a volume that returns to this turbulent period to explore the origins and implications of the diminished faith in government as capable of solving public problems. In the wake of the fiscal crisis of 1975, Holtzman argues, local people and officials rebuilt the city from the ground up, creating a system that would both exacerbate old racial and economic inequalities and produce new ones that continue to shape metropolitan areas today. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the tenth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell expands upon previous episodes to consider the various musical styles that emerged in New York City during the Seventies alongside punk rock. In dialogue with music critic Will Hermes, author of Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011), and Lou Reed: King of New York (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023) we contextualize cultural creators in the city during the decade who spurred a tide of experimental music including hip-hop, salsa, techno, and new styles of jazz within the context of New York City’s fiscal crisis. Will Hermes is a senior critic for Rolling Stone and a longtime contributor to NPR’s “All Things Considered.” His work turns up periodically in The New York Times; he has also written for Spin, Slate, Salon, The Believer, the Village Voice, City Pages, The Windy City Times, and other publications. He co-edited SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music (Crown/Three Rivers, 2006) with Sia Michel, and his work has appeared in the Da Capo Best Music Writing series. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the ninth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell traces the trans-Atlantic movement of artists associated with punk culture in New York and London. In conversation with British cultural historian Matt Worley, we follow New York-based artists like Jayne (née Wayne) County, Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and others to the U.K. where they embedded themselves in a growing music-based subculture. As the punk aesthetic expanded internationally it diversified in form incorporating elements of fashion, literature, and cinema like Derek Jarman’s apocalyptic masterpiece JUBILEE (1978).  Matt Worley is a Professor of Modern History at the University of Reading and author of numerous books that cover modern British history with a special focus on music and the British Labor movement. His book No Future: Punk, Politics and British Your Culture, 1976-1984 (Cambridge University Press, 2017) explores the evolution of punk as a fashion, a musical form, an attitude, and an overall aesthetic. Setting punk culture against a backdrop of social fragmentation, violence, high unemployment, and socio-economic change, Worley recaptures punk's anarchic force as a medium through which the frustrated and the disaffected could reject, revolt, and re-invent. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the eighth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell talks with music history professor Steve Waksman about the social and stylistic transformation of the New York rock scene during the mid-1970s. The introduction of new bands clashed with the old guard, culminating with a violent altercation between artists in CBGB in March 1976.  In 2024, Waksman accepted the Leverhulme International Professorship in Music in the Department of Media, Humanities, and the Arts at the University of Huddersfield (UK) where for the next five years he will conduct a comprehensive study of how music and culture have developed since the invention of sound amplification. Waksman is the former Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music and American Studies at Smith College, and the author of numerous books on music history including Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (Harvard University Press, 1999), This Ain't the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk (University of California Press, 2009), and Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé (Oxford University Press, 2022).  Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bruce Springsteen was keenly aware and excited by the sounds of the CBGBs scene during the Seventies. With his own bands, the Boss performed in the same venues associated with punk rock and ultimately wrote songs for Patti Smith and the Ramones. Yet Springsteen’s sound has remained distinct from punk rock as it emanated from New York. In the seventh episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell talks with Bruce Springsteen biographer Jim Cullen and Melissa Ziobro the head curator of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University about Springsteen’s complicated relationship with punk rock in 1970s New York. As an NJ native, the Boss was a so-called “Bridge-and-Tunnel-Boy” but that socio-cultural infrastructure worked both ways. By the end of the Seventies, Springsteen did not need to travel to New York to engage with the punk sound. Punk culture was traveling to Asbury Park, NJ.  Jim Cullen is a historian of American popular culture and has taught at several colleges and universities, including Harvard, Brown, and Sarah Lawrence College. He was a longtime faculty member and History Department chair at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York before moving to the recently founded Greenwich Country Day School in 2020. Cullen is the author of multiple award-winning book books on music including Born in the USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition (Harper Collins, 1997). His latest book, Bridge and Tunnel Boys: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Metropolitan Sound of the American Century (Rutgers University, 2023), compares the musical careers of Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.  Melissa Ziobro is a Professor of Public History at Monmouth University where she is currently the Head Curator for the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music. Former editor of New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Ziobro is deeply committed to documenting New Jersey history with the broader context of the American story. She curated a traveling exhibition called Music America: Iconic Objects from America’s Music History which is now on display at the Grammy Museum in Mississippi and is expected to return to Monmouth University for the opening of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music in Spring 2026.    Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the sixth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell talks with John Holmstrom a comic illustrator and founder of Punk magazine. In the early 1970s, Holmstrom moved from suburban Connecticut to New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts where he studied under the celebrated comic illustrator Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman creator of MAD magazine. In 1975, Holmstrom conceived the idea for Punk Magazine by collaborating with Ged Dunn and Eddie “Legs” McNeil as an independent zine to cover the local rock scene. The trio initially considered the name Teenage News, a reference to an unreleased New York Dolls track, but settled on punk which they derived from the term “punk rock” which by 1975, had crept into music journalism as a descriptor of new sounds in the rock world. Punk magazine ran 15 issues from 1976 to 1979. During that time the publication brought international attention to the local rock scene and created an association between New York rock and punk. In addition to creating Punk magazine, John Holmstrom is perhaps best known for illustrating album covers for the Ramones, including Rocket to Russia (1977) and Road to Ruin (1978). In September 2024, Holmstrom relaunched Punk magazine to cover a new generation of punk bands in New York City.  Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Gotham Center for NYC History - CUNY GCDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fifth episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with British music critic Jon Savage about how LGBTQ resistance shaped American popular music from the 1950s to the 1980s. Savage discusses the curious and queer roots of the word punk stretching back to the time of Shakespeare when it was used to connote ambiguous and transgressive gender and sexuality. Those meanings carried through to the 1970s though their origins may have been obscured by popular culture.  Jon Savage is the award-winning author of England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (1991) and Teenage: The Creation of Youth, 1875-1945 (2007) and his latest book, The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture, 1955-1979 (2024). He is the writer of the award-winning film documentaries The Brian Epstein Story (1988) and Joy Division (2007), as well as the feature film Teenage (2013). His compilations include Meridian 1970 (Heavenly/EMI 2005) and Queer Noises: From the Closet to the Charts, 1961-1976 (Trikont 2006).  Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Gotham Center for NYC History - CUNY GCDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the fourth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell and music historian Jesse Rifkin tour a constellation of seedy bars and venues in the 1970s that nurtured bands during the early days of punk rock. These spaces include well-known clubs like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City and lesser-known haunts like the Mercer Arts Center and Mother’s that shed light on hidden meanings behind punk rock. These stories illuminate echoes of the trans liberation struggle, and how punk rock embodied the sounds of the city collapsing in a literal sense.   Jesse Rifkin is the owner and operator of Walk on the Wild Side Tours NYC, a music history walking tour company in New York City, and consults as a pop music historian for the Association for Cultural Equity. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, and Vice among other venues. Before his work as a historian, he spent twelve years touring the country as a working musician, playing at CBGB, Lincoln Center, and venues of every size and shape in between. In 2023, Rifkin published his debut book, This Must be the Place: Music, Community and Vanished Spaces in New York City (Harper Collins, 2023).  Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When singer Debbie Harry helped form Blondie in 1974 she developed a unique stage persona to front the band. Though she may have appeared to fans as a hyper-femme caricature, Harry recalls her role as androgynous or "transexual" in her 2019 memoir Face It. In the third episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with Cornell University professor of music Judith Peraino, and  University of Iowa cultural studies professor Kembrew McLeod about the stylistic and social forces that shaped gender-bending bands like Blondie and others in the early “punk” scene in 1970s New York.  Judith Peraino is the author of multiple publications on rock music and constructions of gender. This includes We’re Having Much More Fun: Punk Archives for the Present from CBGB to Gilman and Beyond (Cornell University Press, 2025) co-edited with Tom McEnaney, professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkley.  McLeod is a cultural critic and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of Parallel Lines in Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 Series (2016) and the critically acclaimed history The Downtown Pop Underground: New York City and the Literary Punks, Renegade Artists, DIY Filmmakers, Mad Playwrights, and Rock ’N’ Roll Glitter Queens Who Revolutionized Culture. (Abrams Press, 2018)  Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with Tony Zanetta. In the late 1960s, Zanetta worked in Off-Off-Broadway theater and ultimately landed a role playing the Andy Warhol character in Pork, an absurdist play based on Warhol’s phone recordings. Zanetta followed the cast to London where he befriended David Bowie who subsequently appointed him president of his management company, Main Man, and Bowie’s direct point of contact in America for the Ziggy Stardust tour (1972). With his involvement with Bowie, Zanetta was responsible for developing acts under the Main Man umbrella. This included a proto-punk band called Queen Elizabeth fronted by Jayne (formerly Wayne) County. With Bowie’s financial backing, Zanetta produced a gender-bending spectacle of drag, sex, and rock ’n’ roll: Wayne County at the Trucks! (1974). It may be the most spectacular rock show you have never heard of … till now. Contact Soundscapes NYC Here Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices