No Dogs in Space is back to feed your need for obsessive music history
No Dogs in Space is back to feed your need for obsessive music history
《No Dogs in Space》回归，满足你对痴迷音乐史的渴望
The podcast is getting ‘back to basics’ with Punk 2.0 该播客通过《Punk 2.0》系列回归“基础”
In August, I wrote about my love of the music history podcast No Dogs in Space, but mourned the fact that there hadn’t been a new episode in over two years. Little did I know that hosts Carolina Hidalgo and Marcus Parks were gearing up to announce the show’s return with season four, Punk 2.0. The first episode premiered this week, part one of a series on the New York Dolls, a band near and dear to my heart as a native Staten Islander, home of frontman David Johansen.
今年八月，我曾写过自己对音乐历史播客《No Dogs in Space》的热爱，但也为该节目已超过两年没有更新而感到惋惜。我当时并不知道，主持人 Carolina Hidalgo 和 Marcus Parks 正准备宣布该节目以第四季《Punk 2.0》回归。本周播出了第一集，这是关于“纽约玩偶”（New York Dolls）乐队系列的第一部分。作为一名土生土长的史泰登岛人（该乐队主唱 David Johansen 的家乡），这支乐队对我而言意义非凡。
For the new season, Hidalgo and Parks decided it was time to get back to basics. Part of that was that they felt punk rock was where their passion and expertise were strongest. Parks said that they “wanted to go all over. I wanted to do Beethoven at one point,” but that “we realize like what we do best is tell a punk story, right? Not the punk story, but a punk story.“ But also, they said, that’s just where the most interesting stories are. After spending enormous amounts of time translating German into English for their experimental rock series, they realized that, often, the story behind the bands boils down to ”art school kids fucking around.”
在新一季中，Hidalgo 和 Parks 决定回归基础。部分原因是他们觉得朋克摇滚是他们热情和专业知识最集中的领域。Parks 说，他们“曾想涉猎各种题材，我一度想做贝多芬”，但“我们意识到，我们最擅长的是讲述朋克故事，对吧？不是‘那个’朋克故事，而是‘一个’朋克故事。”此外，他们还表示，那里才有最有趣的故事。在为实验摇滚系列花费大量时间将德语翻译成英语后，他们意识到，乐队背后的故事往往归结为“艺术学校的孩子们在胡闹”。
There were a number of reasons why the new season took so long to come together. But one of the biggest is that the duo made a few false starts. Early on, the plan was to tackle the DC punk scene. Hidalgo told The Verge that “we worked on it for over six months” and that they planned to launch the series with Bad Brains. “And then we look into them,” Hidalgo said, “and they’re like, incredibly homophobic. Like, fire and brimstone … A lot of No Dogs bands like, they’re problematic, but that was like a really tough one to focus on.”
新一季筹备如此之久有诸多原因，但其中最大的原因是两人经历了几次失败的尝试。起初，他们的计划是探讨华盛顿特区的朋克场景。Hidalgo 告诉《The Verge》：“我们为此工作了六个多月”，并计划以 Bad Brains 乐队开启该系列。“但当我们深入研究他们时，”Hidalgo 说，“发现他们极其恐同。就像是那种充满愤怒与审判的言论……《No Dogs》节目中涉及的许多乐队都有争议，但这一支确实很难让人专注于此。”
The two then attempted to do a series that covered the DC as a whole — “never do that,” Hidalgo warned. Parks said that “it just kept swelling larger,” listing off a number of acts that may not have been part of the DC punk scene, but were important foundational elements, like Chuck Brown and go-go. The two even mused that Georgetown University’s WGTB radio might be worthy of a series all on its own. But ultimately, “when you try to put all of them together, you can’t. You just can’t put all of these stories together,” Parks said. “And after eight months of working on it … we eventually had to admit defeat.”
随后，两人试图制作一个涵盖整个华盛顿特区音乐场景的系列——“千万别这么做，”Hidalgo 警告道。Parks 说，这个计划“不断膨胀”，列举了许多可能不属于华盛顿朋克场景，但却是重要基础元素的艺人，比如 Chuck Brown 和 go-go 音乐。两人甚至感叹乔治城大学的 WGTB 电台本身就值得做一个系列。但最终，“当你试图把所有这些放在一起时，你做不到。你根本无法将所有这些故事串联起来，”Parks 说，“在为此工作了八个月后……我们最终不得不承认失败。”
The effort wasn’t a total waste, however. They did get a two-part series on Link Wray out of it that will premiere later this year.
不过，这些努力并非完全白费。他们从中整理出了一个关于 Link Wray 的两集系列，将于今年晚些时候首播。
Like any season of No Dogs in Space, part of the fun is the weird sidequests and rabbit holes that Parks and Hidalgo go down. During the New York Dolls series, Hidalgo became obsessed with Mott the Hoople. The band is best known for their David Bowie-penned hit “All the Young Dudes,” but their story is a fascinating one. Hidalgo says lead singer Ian Hunter “was just a guy digging ditches. And then he got a call from a friend who said, ‘Hey, there’s a band, and like, they’re not very good, and they need a new lead singer,’ and so he just showed up.” Hunter also wrote “Cleveland Rocks,” which was covered by The Presidents of the United States of America and became the theme for The Drew Carey Show.
和《No Dogs in Space》的任何一季一样，乐趣的一部分在于 Parks 和 Hidalgo 深入挖掘的那些古怪的支线任务和“兔子洞”。在制作“纽约玩偶”系列期间，Hidalgo 对 Mott the Hoople 乐队着了迷。该乐队最出名的是由 David Bowie 创作的热门歌曲《All the Young Dudes》，但他们的故事非常迷人。Hidalgo 说，主唱 Ian Hunter “原本只是个挖沟渠的工人。后来他接到朋友的电话说：‘嘿，有个乐队，他们水平不怎么样，需要一个新主唱’，于是他就去了。”Hunter 还创作了《Cleveland Rocks》，这首歌后来被 The Presidents of the United States of America 翻唱，并成为了《德鲁·凯里秀》（The Drew Carey Show）的主题曲。
Parks says he became obsessed with drag queen Jackie Curtis. “It could be argued that the punk style that is often credited to Richard Hell probably actually originated with Jackie Curtis,” he said. He also shared a story about how Curtis once “went out on to [their] windowsill… like Batman, inching like Batman” to get into the apartment of a recently deceased neighbor to steal her clothes before the coroner came.
Parks 则表示他迷上了变装皇后 Jackie Curtis。“可以说，通常归功于 Richard Hell 的朋克风格，其实很可能起源于 Jackie Curtis，”他说。他还分享了一个故事，讲述了 Curtis 有一次如何“爬到窗台上……像蝙蝠侠一样，像蝙蝠侠那样一点点挪动”，以便在验尸官到来之前潜入刚去世的邻居公寓里偷走她的衣服。
It’s these sorts of tangents that make No Dogs in Space so compelling. “We live our lives in like a state of obsession,” Parks said. “Obsession really is, it is kind of our superpower. And we were both recently diagnosed with autism and discovered that that’s just who we are. That’s the superpower that we get.“
正是这些旁枝末节让《No Dogs in Space》如此引人入胜。“我们生活在一种痴迷的状态中，”Parks 说，“痴迷确实是我们的超能力。我们最近都被诊断出患有自闭症，并发现这就是真实的我们。这就是我们所拥有的超能力。”
If you’re wondering where to start, the new series on the New York Dolls is as good as any. The Dolls were a protopunk and glam act that played an important role in building the NYC scene. But I also can’t recommend the series on the Replacements, Dead Kennedys, or Joy Division enough. You can listen to the new season of No Dogs in Space now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you find fine podcasts. Or, for the first time, the show will be posted on YouTube as full video episodes.
如果你不知道从哪里开始听，关于“纽约玩偶”的新系列是一个绝佳的起点。这支乐队是原始朋克和华丽摇滚的代表，在构建纽约音乐场景中发挥了重要作用。此外，我也强烈推荐关于 The Replacements、Dead Kennedys 或 Joy Division 的系列节目。你现在可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或任何你收听优质播客的地方收听《No Dogs in Space》的新一季。此外，该节目首次以完整视频剧集的形式发布在 YouTube 上。