KUCI: Get the Funk Out!

This week on Get the Funk Out on KUCI 88.9 FM, Janeane takes a closer look at Daisy Chain Fields, the new music festival celebrating women and girls through music, creativity, community and connection.

With an extraordinary lineup featuring Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Doechii, Mitski, Stevie Nicks, Sarah McLachlan and many more, Daisy Chain Fields promises to be a major celebration of women in music.

But there is another important story happening beyond the stages.

Daisy Chain Fields is also bringing attention to nonprofit organizations working on issues affecting women, girls, families and communities. On this episode of Get the Funk Out, Janeane speaks with several of the festival's nonprofit partners about their work, what brought them to Daisy Chain Fields, and how listeners can learn more about the causes they represent.

Center for Reproductive Rights

Janeane begins the conversation with Madeline Halperin Robinson of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an organization that uses law and advocacy to advance reproductive rights around the world.

The Center has been involved in major reproductive-rights cases in courts around the world, including every major U.S. Supreme Court abortion case.

Learn more:

Public Affairs Advocacy Manager, Planned Parenthood

Next, Janeane welcomes Emily Escobar, Public Affairs Advocacy Manager with Planned Parenthood.

Emily brings an advocacy perspective to the conversation, discussing the work of Planned Parenthood and the importance of access to reproductive health care and advocacy.

Learn more:

Chief Global Engagement Officer, Jhpiego

Janeane then speaks with Naomi Giges Downey, Chief Global Engagement Officer at Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins-affiliated global health organization.

Jhpiego works to improve health and expand access to quality care, with a particular focus on women, families and communities around the world. Jhpiego's current leadership page lists Downey as Chief Global Engagement Officer.

Learn more:

National Women's Law Center

The conversation continues with Uma Iyer of the National Women's Law Center, bringing the perspective of law, policy and gender justice to the discussion.

The National Women's Law Center works through legal advocacy, public policy and research to advance gender justice and equality.

Learn more:

Co-Director, Center for Indigenous Health

Janeane closes the hour with Dr. Melissa Walls, Co-Director of the Center for Indigenous Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Walls' work centers on Indigenous health and well-being, with an emphasis on research and partnerships that are developed alongside Indigenous communities. Her work also includes a focus on Indigenous health equity and global Indigenous well-being.

Learn more:

Learn more about the Center:

Daisy Chain Fields creates a space where music and social impact intersect—bringing artists, nonprofit organizations and communities together around issues affecting women and girls.

These conversations offer listeners an opportunity to go beyond the festival lineup and meet some of the people and organizations working to create change every day.

Listen to Get the Funk Out on KUCI 88.9 FM from UC Irvine, and explore the organizations featured above.

https://www.daisychainfields.com/

Directed by: Doug Pray

Written by: David Greene, Ketch Secor

Edited by: Doug Pray

Produced by: Stephanie Meurer, Ashley York, Doug Pray

Executive Produced by: Ketch Secor, David Greene, Foster Phillips

RT: 89 minutes

“Thought-Provoking, Poignant, A Must See”

Janet Walker, Haute-Lifestyle

“Easily one of the most important films of 2026”

Steve Kopian, Unseen Films

“A perspective that feels almost radical in a media landscape built on outrage”

Chris Jones, Overly Honest Movie Reviews

We’re having the conversation…

In the wake of yet another mass shooting, this time at The Covenant School in Nashville, Ketch Secor, lead singer of the popular country-bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show, decided it was time to speak out on gun reform. He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled, “Country Music Can Lead America Out of Its Obsession with Guns.” It caught the attention of Ketch’s friend, David Greene, former NPR reporter and host of KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center,” and the two set out to kickstart an open dialog about gun rights and gun violence in America. Film director Doug Pray followed Ketch and David as the band toured rural and urban communities, creating the documentary LOUDER THAN GUNS named after a song Ketch wrote for the victims of the Covenant shooting.

Known for their signature song “Wagon Wheel,” Old Crow Medicine Show attracts a wide demographic of music fans, stretching to the furthest ends of today’s culture wars. People in the front row of their concerts might not agree on anything besides the music they love, providing this film with one of modern America’s rarest opportunities: the chance to engage with one another respectfully, despite our differences.

Smashing stereotypes, LOUDER THAN GUNS brings together the frustrations and hopes of citizens who are asked to listen to one another and try to find common ground. Led by Ketch and David, these emotional and inspiring discussions, in barbeque joints, barbershops, church pews, gun stores, and concert halls, prove that localized, community-led discourse has the power to move the needle on gun reform in ways that today’s polarized media and politicians rarely achieve. Because most people in this country—gun owners and non-gun owners alike— want safer communities.

LOUDER THAN GUNS screened in LA on July 28 at Laemmle’s Monica Theater and on July 29 at Laemmle’s Glendale Theater. 

To view the trailer, go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKewN_PayUY

Official website:

https://www.louderthanguns.com

more: getthefunkoutshow.kuci.org

Aafiya Mahmood

Today's guest

In January 2025, devastating wildfires swept through Los Angeles. Through firsthand interviews, children reflect on what they experienced, what they lost, what they carried with them, and how their lives have been forever changed; while simultaneously holding onto hope for what comes next.

Co-directed by Nat Wolff and Austin Cauldwell, the film was produced by Mina Sundwall and her company Zenosyne Media, along with Eliza Paprin and Julia Pitch, who also served as Cinematographer. The film was edited by Ben Schwaeber.

According to Wolff and Cauldwell:

“In the wake of the fires, much of the conversation focused on what had been lost: homes, schools, and a sense of stability. What felt missing were the voices of the children living through it. Rather than speaking about them, we wanted to listen to them. So we set out to create a space where kids and families could share their experiences in their own words. 

What we found was not only grief, but resilience, optimism, and humor. Even in the aftermath of tragedy, these children continue to imagine, adapt, and grow. Their stories reminded us that they are not just witnesses to disaster, but rather, they are participants in the future being shaped around them.

Our hope is that this film encourages audiences to think about the world we are leaving for our children. It will be their world. They deserve to have a voice in it.”

Austin Cauldwell is a Los Angeles based writer, director, actor, and acting teacher. His short film Idyll, which he wrote and directed, premiered at Florida International Film Festival earlier this year and was an official selection at Fantasia Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival. As an actor, he has worked on stage, most notably opposite Edie Falco in the Off Broadway production of The True. His TV credits include Switched at Birth (ABC Family), NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, and Monster.

Sagar V. Parikh, M.D., FRCPC is the John F. Greden Professor of Depression and Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. As a psychiatrist and former family physician, he focuses on diverse mood disorder treatments: novel medications including psychedelics, psychotherapy, digital tools, ketamine, and TMS.  He conducts research on how to improve health care delivery as well as how to improve public and clinician education about mood disorders. 

Education Chair, CANMAT (Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments)

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The highly personal, first-person filmmaking of ACTING LIKE WOMEN addresses themes of feminist, activism, performance art, LGBTQ+, herstory, and art. A rebellious art form, exploding onto the scene in the late 1970s and 1980s gave birth to the “performance art as protest” movement seen around the world today. Led by female, feminist, artists determined to bring women’s bodies and voices into the art world, from a foundational feminist art space called The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, the radical rebellion gave rise to powerful activism at the apex of the Women’s Movement.

LOGLINE:

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Julia Hotz, Author of THE CONNECTION CURE (Simon & Schuster), Social Prescribing USA Advisor, Journalist, Keynote Speaker, Fellowships Manager at Solutions Journalism Network

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As a boy in colonial Kenya, Pius Kamau learns early what it means to run with lions-both the metaphorical powers that stalk his people and the real leopard he encounters alone in the forest, the first of many times he will stand eye-to-eye with death.

Returning to an independent Kenya as a doctor, Pius discovers oppression has simply changed hands. This powerful memoir traces his journey from dirt-poor village boy to physician and eventually to surgeon, proving resilience, intellect, and courage know no color or border.

Pius K. Kamau, MD, thoracic surgeon and author, has written for HuffPost, Denver's Dailies, and the Denver Gazette. He's been published in NPR's This I believe, Marlo Thomas's The Right Word at the Right Time, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book, and Medical Business. He also penned the mystery novel Doctor's Date with Death. Kamau established Africa America Higher Education Partnerships (AAHEP), a nonprofit that helps African women scientists to pursue graduate degrees in the US, and is the host of Never Again, the podcast of the Coalition Against Global Genocide.

more: getthefunkoutshow.kuci.org