Skirball Cultural Center: Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–86
Playing Punk Music at the Skirball: What Happens When a Corporate DJ Gets to Be a Rebel for a Night
I've been DJing for almost 20 years. I've played Netflix parties, McLaren launches, and Atlassian’s keynote. I know how to read a room full of executives and celebrities at movie premiere events and make it feel like a party. But last Wednesday, May 20th, I got to do something I haven't done in my entire career: play a full set of punk rock.
I was the DJ for the opening night of Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–86 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles - and it was one of the most personally meaningful gigs I've ever played.
The Girl Who Loved NOFX
Before I was a corporate event DJ, before Prism DJs, before any of this - I was a teenager who loved NOFX, Face to Face, and Minor Threat. I was very much familiar with The Ramones, The Clash, and Sex Pistols too - the classics that introduced so many of us to punk. Punk taught me to reject the idea that there's only one way to do things. That spirit actually lives inside everything I do as a DJ and as the founder of a female-forward agency in an industry that's historically been about 80% male.
The Exhibit
If you're in Los Angeles, you have to go see this. Outsiders, Outcasts, Rebels + Weirdos: Punk Culture 1976–86 is on view now at the Skirball Cultural Center. It's a genuinely fascinating look at the origins, energy, and cultural impact of punk - the music, the fashion, the politics, the community. Learn more and plan your visit at skirball.org.
The Set
For this opening, I went deeper into my music knowledge and curation. Beyond the classics, I mixed in 80s punk, post-punk, new wave, and yes - reggae.
That last one surprised a few people, but it's historically accurate and the Skirball exhibit touches on it directly: in 1977 London, clubs like The Roxy were launching punk. House DJ Don Letts was spinning reggae and dub between sets because there simply weren't enough punk records yet. Punks embraced the militant basslines and anti-authority energy immediately. The connection runs deep.
Some of my personal favorites from the set:
Circle Jerks - Beverly Hills and Wild in the Streets
Bad Brains - Sailin' On
Descendents - Hope
Fugazi - Waiting Room
And some of the covers I loved dropping:
X - Wild Thing
The Slits - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
The Dickies - Paranoid
The Dictators - California Sun
One of my favorite moments was playing X-Ray Spex and thinking about how their sound directly influenced Le Tigre - you can hear the DNA of Identity in Deceptacon, clear as day. Those throughlines in music history are what make digging into a genre like this so rewarding.
I closed the set the only way I could: Sheena Is a Punk Rocker by The Ramones.
The Full Playlist
I built a Spotify playlist of every song I played, in order - punk, post-punk, garage rock, and new wave, featuring artists from the exhibit. If you want to go on the journey, it's all here: 🎵 Listen on Spotify
Arts + Culture Events Need Great DJs Too
Corporate events are my specialty, but nights like this remind me that some of the most memorable events happen at the intersection of music, art, and culture. Museum openings, gallery launches, cultural institution galas, film premieres - these are events that deserve the same level of intentionality and expertise that goes into a Fortune 500 conference opening.
If you're an event producer or event planner in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, or the Bay Area planning an arts and culture event, a museum opening, a brand activation, or a premiere - my team at Prism DJs and I would love to be part of it.
