Music history podcast No Dogs in Space returns with new punk-focused season

Music history podcast No Dogs in Space, hosted by Carolina Hidalgo and Marcus Parks, has returned after a break of more than two years with its fourth season, titled Punk 2.0. The first episode, released this week, is part of a series on the New York Dolls.

For this season, the hosts chose to refocus on punk rock, the genre where they feel their passion and expertise are strongest. Parks said he once considered covering other topics entirely, but realized their real strength lies in telling punk stories rather than covering everything. After spending significant time translating German material for their experimental rock series, they concluded that the most compelling stories often simply come down to art school kids fooling around.

The new season took a long time to come together due to several false starts. The hosts initially planned a series on the Washington, DC punk scene, intending to open with Bad Brains, but abandoned that plan after research revealed the band held strongly homophobic views. They then attempted to cover the entire DC punk scene as a whole, but after eight months of work concluded the story was too sprawling to fit together and had to abandon it. The effort wasn't wasted, however, as it produced a two-part series on Link Wray set to premiere later this year.

While working on the New York Dolls series, Hidalgo became fascinated by the story of Mott the Hoople, while Parks became engrossed in the life of drag queen Jackie Curtis. Both hosts also shared that they were recently diagnosed with autism, which they describe as the source of the intense focus that drives their research.

The new season is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms, and for the first time, episodes are also being posted as full videos on YouTube.