In the early 1990s, Gino Jevdjevic was living the typical life of a Yugoslavian popstar. He signed autographs and posed for pictures with fans. He wore his hair in a ponytail and crooned schmaltzy melodies. These days, Gino has a shaved head, a multitude of tattoos and a long, grey-streaked beard. He lives in Seattle, and his music is closer to metal or “Gypsy Punk” than it is to pop. To understand how he got from one version of Gino to Gino 2.0, you have to go back to 1992. ‘War Comes To Us’ At

Meet a mother and a daughter working through how blood and language have shaped their relationship. Simone Alicea is a reporter and editor here at KNKX. Her mom Veronica Alicea-Galvan is a King County Superior Court judge. They came together in a Storycorps booth in Chicago to talk about something specific: the bilingual court that Judge Alicea-Galvan used to run in Des Moines, Washington. But the conversation strayed pretty quickly into this intimate space, where both women learned things about

This story originally aired on December 9, 2017. Meet a mother and a daughter working through how blood and language have shaped their relationship. Simone Alicea is a reporter and editor here at KNKX. Her mom Veronica Alicea-Galvan is a King County Superior Court judge. They came together in a Storycorps booth in Chicago to talk about something specific: the bilingual court that Judge Alicea-Galvan used to run in Des Moines, Washington. But the conversation strayed pretty quickly into this

This story originally aired on December 9, 2017. When Darren Maypower was 16 years old he was in his fourth foster care home. Even though he was less than two years shy of becoming an adult in the eyes of the state, he still held out hope that he would find a family to call his own. His criteria was quite simple: stability and love. At the same time Darren was searching for his future parents, two women were also looking to complete their family. Christine Colling and Carrie Power, two educators

This story originally aired on December 9, 2017. Lois Langrebe has taught Lushootseed for over two decades, a dying language of the Tulalip tribes that she’s struggling to keep from going extinct. It’s an important role that she never expected to fill while growing up. A child of adoption, Lois was raised by a white family, knowing little about her origins or the culture of Native Americans. For years she struggled with her identity and finding a place that truly felt like home. And then she

This story originally aired on December 9, 2017. Jeffrey Heckman, from Snohomish, WA, will be the first to tell you life is unpredictable. In the summer of 2015, while vacationing on San Juan Island with friends and family, Jeff was studying his Bible when, all of a sudden, an intense and unfamiliar pain struck him. The culprit was an aortic dissection - a tear in the large vein branching off from the heart. He was airlifted to Providence Medical Center, where renowned surgeon, Dr. James Brevig,

This show originally aired on December 9, 2017. This week on Sound Effect, our theme is "Blood Ties." Host Gabriel Spitzer heads to a class at the University of Washington where midwives learn how to deal with hemorhage during pregnancy. Alex Ashley profiles a Jehovah Witness who had to find an alternative to a blood transfusion during a medical emergency. We’ll meet a woman who found her birth mother, and then worked to keep her native language alive . Finally, Jennifer Wing introduces us to a

There is a Northwest band that’s been around for 17 years, called Out Of The Ashes. There are about 30 members. They play covers of The Beatles, Elvis, Tom Petty, and other popular artists. One of the things that sets this band apart is that to be a member, you have to have a developmental disability such as Autism or Down Syndrome. On a recent Tuesday afternoon, 34 year-old Thomas John Meyer is standing on the shiny, hardwood dance floor of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall in Bellingham, Wash,

Singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson writes intimate music that connects with her fans in a very personal way. Olympia's independent K Records wrote that "her recordings make it feel as though you have a friend there whispering in your ear. And you do because Kimya is your friend." However, Dawson's intimacy can sometimes get her into trouble. She finds herself opening her heart too much and taking in too many friends. At our live event in May, Dawson shared one of her songs and explored how she

This story originally aired on October 15, 2016. Sometimes what we do as children traps us in time. The rest of the world will forever equate you with what you did when you were young, even as you grow beyond whatever it was that gave you that label in the first place. This is what happened to 17-year-old Marcelas Owens of Seattle. When Marcelas was 8 years old, his mother, Tiffany Owens, died from pulmonary hypertension. This is when your lungs have high blood pressure. People can live a long