InFrequencies from BFF.fm

Across the past 5 episodes of this podcast, I’ve shared interviews and performances from our radio archives in the context of this experience we’re now collectively living through and how music and community can be something precious to hold onto in devastating and uncertain times.

For the final episode of the season, I'm excited to share another aspect of the BFF community: intimate musical performances, featuring local artists, that pull at our heartstrings and pull us in close together. We used to do them live in person and now they’re happening online every month.

Hosting these streams are station founder Amanda Guest and Erika Delgado, AKA DJ Space Abuela, who is BFF.fm's event director and organizer of our monthly "Besties Bashes".

Erika is BFF's beloved abuela, clown, and  now, with their new podcast PARA BFF, playing the roll of paranormal investigator.

They join me in sharing some sweet, funny, moving performances from our virtual Bestie's Bashes, talk about why representation matters, and talk about why the invitation to get weird and play is essential.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.

Bands/Musicians featured in this episode include: Maggie Gently, Boy Scouts, Night Jars, Maya Songbird, Tyler Holmes, and Practicing Sincerity

Listen to Abuela's Pantry on BFF.fm Fridays 2-4pm and find PARA BFF here.

This episode was edited and produced by Lily Sloane.

Theme tune by Lily Sloane.

Check out the full archives on the website.

In March, the BFF studio, like almost everything else, closed down. But the shows went on with DJ’s broadcasting from home.

Just this past week, with community support, BFF created a pop up studio at San Francisco’s Ferry Building, where guests can safely join DJ’s through a window and listeners can stop by and say hello. The visibility is really exciting and brings us out into the world which is...insert long deep sigh ...much needed.

Something so many BFF DJ’s miss is the ability to sit in our quirky studio in the Mission and talk about music with fellow DJ’s, musicians, and friends. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent in that magical little space, designed like a Jules Verne-esque cozy library on the inside of an explorer’s wrecked ship. Each week I discovered new details in a book spine or curio on the shelf, while feeling the joy of sharing ideas, music, and space with other humans I really like. This place felt like home to so many of us and, by extension, our listeners could join us there across the ether.

Sometimes, with guitar chords and auxiliary cables spinning spider webs in the space, we even had live performances on air - imagine a miniaturized NPR Tiny Desk show.

In July 2019, Ben Ward, host of No Magic Radio, had one such performance by Oakland musician Cara Esten, who releases music as Rusty Sunsets.

On her album Disambiguation Station, Cara breaks from her own traditions both musically and conceptually. Built around a self-imposed creative constraint, the album demonstrates that even when artists seek to move away from the familiar, we still discover our core personal themes calling out to us within the new terrain.

In No Magic fashion, the conversation flows with reverie through history lessons, self-discovery, climate change, apocalypse, love, and longing for a sense of home. Listening, I’m reminded of the adage “wherever you go, there you are.”

Music––whether listening or creating––is its own kind of travel, through time and space. It’s a conversation between the deeply personal and the worlds and histories we inhabit.

But first, we have to get all the wires sorted out.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.

Find Disambiguation and more from Rusty Sunsets here.

Listen to No Magic Radio on BFF.fm, Tuesdays 8-10pm.

This episode was edited and produced by Lily Sloane.

Theme tune by Lily Sloane.

Check out the full archives on the website.

I think it’s fair to say, a community is only as healthy and thriving as its arts scene, just as our personal health depends on our ability to express ourselves across a broad emotional spectrum as part of the larger socio-political conversation––maybe just as much as we need vitamin c to ward off scurvy. I know for me art, community, and the places those two intersect are what drive my will to survive such challenging times.

Since this season is all about shining a light on some wonderful artists who’ve visited our live shows and the DJ’s who’ve interviewed them, we’d be remiss not to include this January 2018 interview with Bay Area music legend John Vanderslice.

Besides making a ton of music, John is the owner of Tiny Telephone, a recording studio he founded in 1997. Sadly, the San Francisco space closed this past July. But his Oakland studio is alive and well.

This interview takes us on a tour of some of the challenges and joys of creating a space that’s become so important to the indie music scene in the Bay Area and well beyond. How do you hold onto your values to have a fair and equitable organization that supports artists in one of the most expensive cities in the world?

John sat down in the studio with DJ Nino MSK of Espresso Sesh and what resulted was an engrossing conversation about music, politics, gentrification, community, and mental health.

Since this interview, John Vanderslice moved to LA, as he was already dreaming of doing back in 2018. But Tiny Telephone is still operating in Oakland so we didn’t lose everything.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.

Listen to/purchase John Vanderslice's newest EP, Eeeeeeep!

Listen to Espresso Sesh Tuesdays 2-4pm.

This episode was edited and produced by Johnathon Sosa and Lily Sloane.

Theme tune by Lily Sloane.

"Song For Leopold" used with permission from John Vanderslice.

Check out the full archives on the website.

I love the broad range of music our DJ’s so lovingly share with us on their shows at BFF. I’ve heard music I wouldn’t have discovered on my own, either because it’s of a genre I don’t normally listen to or the artist is deep underground. Community radio like this helps turn that whispered word of mouth into something just audible so I can learn about all these interesting people who throw themselves into their unique and personal musical expressions. I feel lucky to not only hear their music, but to also hear about their lives and artistic processes.

SAHAB is a prolific Iranian-American electronic music producer and painter in the Bay Area.

Being a local doesn’t have to limit you to one place though. SAHAB grew up splitting his time between Fresno and Iran. With influences ranging from Dervish poetry to 90’s grunge, his work can be seen as both a celebration and reconciliation of multifaceted aspects of the self that transcend one home or cultural experience.

For this episode, let’s get in the time machine and travel to the before before times of November 5th, 2016 when Zuha Khan, AKA DJ Baqvas, invited SAHAB onto her show, Fractal Chambers, to talk about multiculturalism and art. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to just let my mind settle in this other place and time for a bit.

Since this interview, SAHAB has continued on his quest to tell us his truth. For his self-titled seventh album, he’s joined with UK based label Zabte Sote, which keeps a unique focus on experimental electronic music from Iranian composers. His single, MOCHA, is available now and the whole album is available for preorder on Zabte Sote's Bandcamp.

DJ Baqvas does such a great job creating a show with incredible depth and breadth, introducing us to music from all over the world. There’s something special about bridging a focus on local indie music with a global one, especially because many of the things we face, like our current pandemic reality, climate change, and white supremacy, affect the whole world. Shrinking the distance between us, sharing in our humanity, and learning from the ways we’re different is so vital to our survival.

And so is the comfort of listening over and over to the albums we know and love like they’re our best friends in the world.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.

Listen to Fractal Chambers live on BFF.fm Saturdays 10 - 11 am. PST

This episode was edited and produced by Lily Sloane.

Theme tune by Lily Sloane.

Hole's Malibu cover and MOCHA used in this episode with SAHAB's permission.

Check out the full archives on the website.

When shelter in place went into effect, the BFF community rose to the crisis moment immediately, to ensure DJs could keep recording and broadcasting their shows from home.

It felt vital we didn’t lose this ability to be a source of comfort for DJs, musicians, and listeners alike. DJs swapped photos of their blanket fort home studios, learned how to use software they’d never used before, and chipped in money to help those who couldn’t afford it purchase microphones and other necessities for home recording.

Bedroom to bedroom and broadcast to the world, you wouldn’t know we were so isolated, music being such a connective force.

By May, DJ Sweet T of Casually Crying, was ready to take on the technical challenge of having a guest and musical performance on her show––the station’s first since lock down.

Devin Lane, who releases music under the name Gentle Return, joined Sweet T over Zoom to perform some gorgeous songs from his 2020 album, aptly titled “This Is Really Happening”. To add to it, there’s a really beautiful and relatable drawing of a woman clutching her stomach and barfing up flowers on the cover.

I love the depth and vulnerability of this conversation. But of course you can expect that on a show like Casually Crying and from an artist like Devin.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.

Listen to DJ Sweet T on Casually Crying, Fridays 6am-8am.

This episode was edited and produced by Jonathan Sosa and Lily Sloane.

Theme tune by Lily Sloane.

Check out the full archives on the website.

Oakland-based psychedelic duo, Sugar Candy Mountain, is a local favorite. Their website bio aptly says “If Brian Wilson had dropped acid on the beach in Brazil and decided to record an album with Os Mutantes and The Flaming Lips, it would sound like this, all psychedelic pop Wall-of Sound and beach balladry.”

In March 2019, DJ Duffy of BFF.fm’s The Green Room talked to Ash of Sugar Candy Mountain. Back in a time when plans were made, tours were had, and the demise of beloved Bay Area venues was on the minds of musicians and fans alike. This really highlights how essential touring and performing live is for working musicians. But stuff happens. And Ash even shares a perfect example of when things didn’t go as planned and the show could not go on.

As we all know, just a year after this interview, life as we knew it had been completely altered. But also, in the midst of it all, Ash and Will had a baby! This interview in some ways can feel like a relic of the “before times” but it also taps into the same hopes and fears indie artists are experiencing today.

Listen to DJs Duffy and Kellie on The Green Room every Thursday 6-8pm.

This episode was edited and produced by Jonathan Sosa and Lily Sloane.

Theme tune by Lily Sloane.

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.

Check out the full archives on the website.