Tequila Mockingbird (Punk@50)

“For me, it’s always going to be about making sure that our legacies are honored and protected.”

Tequila Mockingbird joins Jessica Schwartz for a conversation about bringing her Punk Museum into the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles as part of Alle gegen Alles. Punk@50. Tequila traces the relationships that brought the collaboration into being and reflects on what institutional recognition means for a project she continues to describe not as her museum but as “our punk museum”—a community-built space shaped through the objects, artworks, memories, and stories people entrust to one another.

Moving through art, ephemera, music, friendship, Punk School, and her own approach to historical preservation, Tequila considers what happens when punk’s DIY practices enter institutional spaces. Rather than treating punk as a fixed collection of relics, she describes the museum as a living “show and tell”: artists and friends bring their own materials, tell the histories attached to them, and collectively build a record of a scene that was never made by one person alone.

The conversation also turns toward punk as a way of thinking—one grounded, for Tequila, in learning to say no, thinking for oneself, and preserving histories for future generations. Looking beyond the current exhibition, she reflects on Punk School, books and film projects, archives, and her commitment to building a “time capsule” whose materials can remain accessible and cared for long after the present moment.

Tequila Mockingbird is an artist, journalist, producer, curator, and cultural archivist whose work has documented and preserved Los Angeles underground music and art for decades. A seminal figure in the Los Angeles punk scene, she is the founder of the Punk Museum, an immersive, community-centered project dedicated to punk history, and Punk School, an educational platform focused on punk’s histories, practices, and values. Her work across television, music, journalism, visual art, archives, and public pedagogy connects the lived histories of early Los Angeles punk with contemporary approaches to preservation and scholarship.

Recorded September 2026.

Links + References:

Tequila Mockingbird's Punk Museum (at the Goethe Institut)

Punk School

Tequila Mockingbird L.A. Punk Museum Collection — UCLA Library Special Collections

Main Alle gegenAlles. Punk@50 project page

The Year Was: 1982 — Tequila Mockingbird + Annett Scheffel / dublab

IG: Tequila Mockingbird

IG: Goethe Institut LA

Credits:

Punkast is hosted and produced by Jessica Schwartz.

Editorial support: Arrow Menedez - audio-synced transcript.

Transcript:

Audio-synced transcript

Theme Music:

Lady Bits, "Bitch-a-thon," Lady Bits.

Related:

Jessica Schwartz co-hosts the Punk Scholars Podcast.

About Punkast:

Punkast is a weekly podcast exploring punk in the historical present through critical conversations, inquiry, and collaboration.

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