Celebrating the podcast's 17th birthday by talking to Amanda Guest about the 10th birthday of the radio station she founded, BFF.fm. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
- Amanda was last on the podcast 10 years ago talking about moving to SF and launching BFF.fm
- Plenty of surprises along the way
- She was a DJ at the Salem State College (now University) station for 18 years
- Commercial radio was already being automated in the mid-'90s
- Built a studio in the Secret Alley in SF
- A lot of the DJs at BFF now weren't alive when Amanda was DJing in the '90s
- Shorter attention spans: Newer DJs are doing one-hour shows
- Jay has been doing a show for BFF since the station started
- "Where's Koomdogg?"
- Building exposure through a crazy boat DJing gig
- Became a nonprofit in 2015
- Amanda was hired as the GM of the station, now doing it full-time
- Went from dues-based organization to nonprofit
- Allows BFF to fundraise and get grants
- Celebrating the station's 10th birthday with events throughout the city
- Amanda plans to stay involved but wants to retire at some point
- SF went into COVID lockdown early and stayed in it the longest
- Studio had to shut down so BFF enabled DJs to broadcast from home
- Found free space in the SF Ferry Building so were able to broadcast from there
- The future of radio won't get less corporate
- Not a lot of commercial stations for indie music, except for college stations
- Amanda: Big electronic music movement happening in SF
- Looking for new music
- The DJ as curator
- BFF has 120 shows on the schedule, most done live in the studio
- Different approaches to show construction
- Great achievements in song segues
- Jay: Coming up on 500 episodes of the radio show
Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.
