Completely Conspicuous 618: You Say It's Your Birthday

Celebrating the podcast's 17th birthday by talking to Amanda Guest about the 10th birthday of the radio station she founded, BFF.fm. 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.