This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV.com. WXAV, bringing the best artists to you. Hi, this is Peter Creighton from WXAV 88.3 FM Chicago. What you're about to hear is my exclusive interview with Nikki Silva, one half of the legendary Kitchen Sisters.
In this interview, Nikki discusses how she first got into radio, how she views audio storytelling, and she gives some great advice for anyone out there who's trying to start their own podcast. Here now is my exclusive interview in its entirety with Nikki Silva from the Kitchen Sisters. So to begin with, can you kind of tell us a little bit about how you first became interested in audio storytelling? Well, this was in the Wayback Machine when I had just gotten out of college at UC Santa Cruz, and I was working in a museum in Santa Cruz.
I was doing exhibits of art and history and natural science, and I was doing a lot of local history and wandering around the area, gathering people's artifacts and stories and putting together shows. And Davia, my radio partner, the other Kitchen Sister, had also just graduated from UC Santa Cruz, and we didn't know each other then, but we were out and about kind of finding ourselves. And she was really interested in radio, had been since she was just a young girl. And in high school, she was the noon disc jockey at her high school where she would broadcast over the PA system.
And she just always had this great love of disc jockeys and radio and radio storytelling. She always said it's because she had poor eyesight, and her ears just became her eyes. I think it's more than that with her, but it always makes me chuckle. Anyway, she was out.
She had just graduated, and she was doing a radio show on our local non-commercial station, KUSP. And at that time, she had a two-hour-long show, and she decided she wanted to do oral histories. And she wanted to find out about our area and about all the old-timers and about life in this region. And so she sort of set out to sort of nose around, and it turned out that she hit a blaze, and they'd say, oh, you know, there was this woman here, and she was kind of gathering stories and artifacts for an exhibit.
And, you know, her name's Nikki Silva, and so Davia sort of heard that a few times. And then it took a boyfriend, I think, to really launch the quest because we had a friend in common. She was going out with him, and I knew him. And at one point, he looked at her and said, you know, you really shouldn't meet my friend Nikki.
And so she came over to the museum one day, and we sort of sat on the front porch of the museum looking out over the Monterey Bay. She got there about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and I think at about 8 o'clock at night, we sort of decided we'd better go get some dinner. We sat out there the whole afternoon just talking about our ideas and our dreams and what we were thinking about, and we decided to work together. And so that was kind of the beginning, and she drew me into radio.
We started to do oral histories together, and we just set out and got into some wonderful, fun, fun, wacky situations that just convinced us that this was something that really spoke to both of us and sort of the storytelling gene I think we were both born with. That's amazing. That's a great story. So would you say that is almost where your love of radio storytelling kind of began?
I've thought about this a lot. You know, I still do museum exhibit some, and I write, and we, and Vivian, I write, and she does film, and she also does screenwriting and casting for film. And, you know, it's storytelling. It all is the same thing.
It's different media and different ways of approaching the story, but really at the heart of it is the story. And I had done film before radio, and it was funny because the part I hated most about film was the sound because I couldn't see it. And, you know, I was working with a quarter-inch tape then and just learning, and it just kind of drove me crazy. I was fascinated by it, but I'm a very visual person, and I just kind of couldn't see it.
And then when we started to do radio together, I realized, and Vivian and I talk about this a lot, we're trying to do little movies and sound. I mean, we're trying to see the sound. And I think for anybody starting out, if you just kind of think about your microphone as a camera and capturing all those kinds of shots, you know, the close-up, the mid-shot, the long shot, every single thing that's in the room, if it makes any kind of sound, the door, the sprinkler outside, the clock chiming, you know, capture that. It can really quickly, without words, transport a person and take them to a place where you want them to be in the story.
It's another layer of communicating the story. It's the pictures. The sound becomes the pictures. That's a fascinating approach.
I've never really thought of the microphone as being the camera. Being a visual person, does that affect, then, how you approach telling your audio stories? Like, do you, like, consciously think you're going to have to be more descriptive with the sounds you record, then? I think so, because without that, it's kind of like if you have a movie with just a talking head.
You know, it's the same thing, actually. It's deeper. It's okay. It works, especially if it's a good storyteller and an interesting person to look at.
But you can deepen it and enrich it with that second layer. When we were getting ready, we wrote a book a while back, and they told us that we couldn't have photographs. And I just said, are you kidding me? If we can't have sound, and we can't have music, and we can't have, if all we can have are the words, you know, there needs to be pictures.
There has to be that other layer, because so much of what Dana and I do in our work is this kind of layering, because we don't narrate, usually. I mean, in our podcasts, we introduce things. But in our radio work on air, if you listen to our stuff on Morning Edition or All Things Considered, and our documentaries, we really have sort of developed this style from very early on, where we've kind of taken ourselves out of the picture as the narrator. Not that we don't like narration.
And we do, and we love it, especially when somebody's really good at it. But we've tried to make those connections and keep the story moving by sort of finding that narrator in our story. Like, if we have multiple characters, there's usually one person who's leading the charge, and we hand it off to archival audio and sound and different ways that sort of keep propelling the movie and give you, I mean, the radio, and keep you moving through the story without actually having to say, okay, we're in a smoky bar room, and the jukebox is playing, and, you know, people are, they have a lot of hubbub, and someone just broke a glass. All those things that might be in a narrative can be there in sound.
Fascinating. There's so many questions that are just popping in my head as you're talking. It's fantastic. It's pretty obvious.
You know, listen to all your various shows that you've done, Lost and Found Sound, The Sonic Memorial Project, Hidden Kitchens, your latest series, Future of Waves, that history plays a huge part of your life and is an interest for you. Can you talk a little bit about, like, how you discovered history, how you discovered that you love history? Like, do you have a first memory where, like, the light bulb went on, and you go, yes, this is the subject that is near and dear to my heart? It's funny, because I just, I kind of feel like all the work we've done and do is this way that I've been learning history.
I mean, I, honestly, it's so funny, because I, actually, if I trace it back, I would have to say, my mom was a great storyteller. Anyway, my mom was, she was great. You know, she had a high school education, she worked as a secretary all of her life, and she just had the best way of telling a story. And she told stories about our family and all the skeletons in the closets and the history of our family, and I just, and she constantly in her mind to be writing a book, which she never wrote, which I'm very sorry she didn't, but she'd be telling me the chapter titles of the book.
And, you know, and I don't know, it was just something very compelling, and I loved listening to it and getting the inside scoop and the story of why things, why relationships were the way they were and what was the back story. And I think that really has compelled me throughout my life. And when I went off to college and beyond, I mean, it was always wanting to know the story behind the story. Like, what isn't being told here?
What isn't in the book? And the way to get that story is to ask the people, to ask the people for the other side, the B side, the side that's not usually, you know, talked about or written about. And so I think David and I both had that kind of, we were both compelled by that. And one of the first kind of historical things we started with, when I think it was because our parents, both of our fathers fought in World War II, and so World War II was something that they knew about that was a huge part of their lives and that we would hear stories about, but we never felt personally.
And I think there was this big part of both of us that always wanted to kind of understand that more. And one thing that I think triggered it for us was, you know, we used to do this weekly radio show, and we played lots of wonderful music, and we interviewed people on the air, and we played some of the stories that we were gathering throughout the region, you know, our oral histories. And one time I was, my dad had this incredible garage that was filled with anything you'd ever want, you know, he was a pack rat. And he pulled out this box of 78 recordings that had belonged to my mom, and mom's 78, there were two boxes of them.
And he gave them to me for our radio show, and we were going through these boxes, and in one of the boxes was this 78 RPM disc that was in a brown paper sleeve, and handwritten on the label, it said, To Louie, love Mrs. B. Louie, play this side first. And it was a home recording, and we'd never heard of a home recording, we didn't know anything about them, but at one point you could actually get record players where you could, instead of just listening to a record, you could actually record into the acetate and make up a recording.
And these were really popular during World War II, and people would send these records back and forth to each other, you know, send it overseas to a loved one, and they'd play it at the USO. And we put this record on at the radio station, and there was this woman's voice from another time. I mean, from everything about her just said, you know, 1942. The sound of her voice she sang to, and the music she sang, her language, you know, she'd say, you know, Hello, Louie, this is your wife again.
And then she'd go on, and she'd say, and her jealousy would come out, Do they jitterbug over there, hun? I bet they don't dance as nice as we do. Do they, hun? And this was her anxiety, her loneliness, her insecurity, her love, all just, we were transported.
And we began to ask around, you know, say everything out loud. We'd ask everybody about these home recordings. It turned out my mother made one and sent it to my father overseas. So we began gathering these things from people's attics and from Goodwill.
We'd go to the secondhand store, and we'd type bins, and they'd be full of these recordings. And it was just a grab bag, a little mystery, like, how did these get separated from their owner? And you'd find out all of these little personal things. And it was something about the voice, something about the sound and the air and the breath that really transported you to these places.
And that was a huge inspiration when we decided to do the Lost in Sound Sound Series. And we opened up the phone lines at NPR and asked people to send us, you know, to call us and tell us about their home recordings and about sound and how it impacted their lives. I mean, we were trying to document how recorded sound had impacted, you know, the 20th century. This was in 1999, right at the 30th century, and it was sort of a celebration of sound.
And so those very early things we did on our live radio show really influenced, had influenced, continued to influence all the things that we have done. And knowing that, just the personal connection that you're discovering as you do it. I mean, we always hear radio is a personal media, and you're finding these moments of these voices where you're just being transported back to 1943, and it's time travel. It sounds like an absolutely incredible experience.
And then it makes you curious. I mean, that's the thing that, when you ask about when did history become a big part of things, it makes you curious. What happened? You know, why did this happen?
What was this battle about? What, you know, what was the political atmosphere of that moment? And going back then and researching, and then, I mean, I think the most valuable thing for us has been actually talking to people and asking them for their personal stories that sort of bring that more academic, rigid interpretation of history to life. I mean, that's, I think, the key, is finding that personal story.
And I'd say that's the challenge, that's the goal, that's the joy of all the work that we're doing and all your students are doing and you're doing, is finding that personal way in. Now, when you look at, to develop a story, like, what's your approach? Do you go more with what interests you or kind of like how you found those 78 home recordings? Do you kind of just, one day it appears and that's what sparks you?
Definitely both. I mean, it's definitely everything. It's kind of a way of walking through the world, you know, just that you have your antenna up and you're thinking about stories and what grabs your attention and what grabs your imagination and what surprises you is usually something that will surprise other people. I mean, if it's a very known thing and it's an interesting known thing, then probably a lot of people know it.
There's also a way, though, to go at an interesting known thing. I mean, so, for instance, when we were doing the Hidden Kitchen series, we really wanted to do something about, you know, hunger and homelessness and, you know, the other side of food, you know, not the fun side of food, the black food and poverty. But, you know, that's a story that's told over and over and over and I think a lot of people just tune that out. You know, the news story comes on and you just kind of go, oh gosh, another, you know, homeless story, another poverty story.
And that's one of the reasons we opened up this phone line and we asked people to, you know, help crowdsource. Tell us this was before crowdsourcing when we did this, when we started this, but it's the same thing. It's like, okay, you guys, what's out there? You know, what do you know about?
And a woman called us and said that for her, the most hidden kitchen was the George Foreman Grill. And because homeless people and new immigrants in the country who live in hotel rooms where they're not allowed to have a kitchen use these grills and they're sort of secret and hidden and underground, but it's their kitchen. It's the way that they eat. And that one message opened up this entire world for us that then we began to say, okay, is this true?
You know, is this really true? And we contacted some homeless shelters, actually a homeless shelter in Chicago, and we asked if they'd ever heard of this. And they go, oh yeah, you know, we've got this guy here who, you know, he cooks on a George Foreman grill and comes into the shelter a lot. So we were able through the shelter in Chicago to get this guy into a studio and he told us about how he would, you know, he had an old broken down George Foreman grill that he'd salvaged somewhere and under Wacker Drive, he lived in a cardboard house and he and his friends used to plug into the poles down there and use the George Foreman grill to cook.
And, you know, so this opened up this whole world. And so we thought, okay, great. Now we have this guy that's saying, yes, he does this. And we looked at each other and we said, does George Foreman know about this?
You know, is this something that he knows that his little grill is being used in this way? So we arranged to interview George Foreman. We interviewed him by phone and it was one of the most incredible interviews that I think we've ever done. It was, he's so articulate and so thoughtful.
And when we told him about the George Foreman grill being used by homeless people, he launched into this story, which we, you know, we've read about, you know, his life, but he launched into a story of childhood hunger and poverty, which just launched this entire series of stories of hidden kitchens. It's still, I think, one of my most favorite hidden kitchen stories. It's just very deep and unexpected. So that's a story that when you ask about, okay, is it, you know, how do you get your stories?
Are you looking? We're looking, we're listening, and we're asking. I mean, say everything out loud. Tell people what you're working on.
Ask them if they, ask them questions. Be curious. I mean, that's, I think, the big thing. And then follow and follow up and keep asking.
I mean, don't just think that just because you have the one person or the one idea that it is a straight course. Not necessarily. I mean, we usually interview, oh, gosh, 15 people. for a five-minute story um maybe not that many but you know we have hours and hours of tape uh behind most of our stories and some of it's just for research purposes and you know and a lot of it hits the floor obviously but that's the beauty of podcasts you can use a lot of other stuff that you didn't get a chance to share has there ever been one story that you you wanted to tell that you haven't been able to tell yet yeah i think there's a lot of stories like that that are kind of on the back burner stories that we that i personally have a big interest in maybe we've started to record uh maybe one person and haven't haven't finished it and i have a long list of things on my to-do list that they just keep getting shuffled to the bottom and and most of them sort of revolve around a person and i don't really know the whole full story uh about them i just think of this woman claudia bernardi who's from argentina um we started this when we were doing a hidden world of girls series we interviewed her i interviewed her at length um and we used little clips of her she has this incredible story with her sister her sister is still in argentina and um after the and they were both in college at the time when the dirty wars in argentina started and she was an artist and actually had left the country at that point but her sister was there and was an anthropologist and became like one of the leads in forensic uh in forensic anthropology after the wars where they were finding out all about the war crimes and the horrible disappearances and what happened to people and claudia being an artist went would go down to help her sister this was pretty early on when computer renderings of things weren't as uh available and um she would plot these um entire burial sites of when they would exhume these bodies and she would draw these elaborate charts of where the bodies were all buried and little children and what was found and and then actually from that out of that has grown this big movement where claudia has opened up um you know different art centers and healing through art and anyway it's a really complicated elaborate story that's going to require a lot of work and going to argentina and working with her sister as well but it's a piece called the bernardi sisters which i've always wanted to do but it sounds absolutely incredible and i hope you're able to get it because i'd love to hear about it i'm joined right now with nikki silva from one half of kitchen sisters and uh check them out their official website is kitchensisters.org you can check out a bunch of their series that they've posted and in fact current series that you're working on is called fugitive waves which uh i love the tagline for it it's uh stories from the flip side of history it's just what a great uh tagline do you have any uh tips or any um you know hints of what's to come in future episodes of fugitive waves uh well we just keep going where you know a lot of the most of the stories that in fugitive waves are stories that we've created over about 35 years we've been working together and then they are expanded or updated or so i mean we have um a huge archive of material and stories and as i was saying earlier so much of it so much of the great stuff that inspires us hits the cutting room floor so a lot of the material we're bringing um up in fugitive waves is um is from our archive uh as well as pushing forward but you know the name fugitive waves it really comes from thomas edison who when he was uh developing you know the first recording device um talked about capturing fugitive waves and this was his uh description of um you know sound waves fugitive sound waves that could be captured and sort of encapsulated uh in on these devices and it's just it's such an evocative idea yeah i never knew that that's really cool yeah yeah you kind of mentioned this earlier i want to just briefly go back to it uh before we start wrapping up you had mentioned uh college radio and how your your partner you know first began at a college radio station obviously working at a college radio station overseeing it how do you think college radio plays a role into the greater media landscape whether it's uh traditional broadcasting radio or uh this new digital revolution that we're underway with with podcasting oh i think it's huge i think it's huge it's not only huge for the students which i do think it is because it's a great launching pad for whatever you want to do i mean you don't have to want to be a radio producer or a disc jockey to learn so much from being involved in radio um i think it's great for the institution i think it's it's a set of ears you know that's really to the ground it you guys are on the cutting edge you know the whole world is looking at the next generation and hoping and praying for answers and for ideas and i think that college radio is just an incubator a great place for people to be experimenting and uh you know pushing it out there it doesn't matter if it doesn't work it really really doesn't it's the experience it's the process it's learning how to present your ideas how to tell a story in a way that's going to be convincing and and uh you know really influence people even if it's a music show you know just the way you talk about the music the way you draw people in and educate them about the music convince them to listen and to push their boundaries you know those things those are huge and public speaking and i mean i can't speak i'm just a big fan of college radio our college radio station here in santa cruz kbsc at ucsc where davia started is great i mean they they play music and they have talk and they i teach up there um you know every quarter so i go up and do a class with the kids that are doing the shows and i learn so much from them i mean they're you got they've got their ear to the ground and they know what's going on so i say yay yay on college radio awesome final question i have for you what advice do you have for any individual that is interested in finding their own storytelling voice well i i think try not i mean i think one of the really lucky lucky things for for the kitchen sisters for davia and for me was that we we really hadn't we really didn't know much about uh what was going on in the rest of the radio world um we'd listen to a lot of fm radio music but at that point in our town npr we didn't we didn't have npr we'd never heard npr uh we knew about it but we didn't listen to it so and didn't really listen to bbc so we didn't really have this idea of what radio or storytelling should sound like except from our own worlds and i think that was a huge benefit because i think now there's so much good stuff happening out there i mean on every level and everyone is totally influenced by ira glass and radio lab and um all the podcasts on radio all these people 99 infusible all these people are doing great creative things but you know there are things to learn from those people but it's it's important to try and move yourself to your own voice and and take your own style it may not be accepted right away i mean when you listen to ira glass tell his stories you know npr refused him for years and he worked for npr as a reporter but he um you know when he wanted to do his own show they turned him down so you know he was part of um you know pri for a long time and and wbez as you guys all know so uh i just say take chances it's a good time to experiment you know be bold be brave be honest and um and kind of listen to where you're coming from what do you love what's your obsession um try to convince me try to draw me in and i think people will be there with you that's incredible advice nikki i've had such a fun time and it's been so insightful just just listening to you tell stories thank you so much for for being willing to join me and talk to me today sure and thanks for the work you're doing i think it's great i love to hear about classes and college radio and all that's happening so go for it thank you for listening to this wxav.com podcast check out wxav.com for future podcasts wxav the escape from ordinary radio