KZSM — Live music from the studio
In keeping with our mission to showcase our talented community, some of our shows on KZSM.org feature live music, direct from our storefront studio. The magic and immediacy of the performances make the challenges of producing quality sound in a small space worth facing.
Veteran DJ Mark Moniz of “Metal Mark Live,” has hosted live groups since he began his Thursday 10-midnight broadcasts in 2017. For his “Rockstars on the Loose” episode, Jessikill and Sean Nations pulled up to the studio in a limo. And more recently a Buckethead tribute performer played live on the show, complete with bucket and mask.
Program host Carole Coburn of “Friday Night with Care,” (Fridays 8-10 p.m.) recalls a rare moment of fusion between music and ambient sound with Austin musician Lucas Cook. “He played a new song he’d written inspired by the Bastrop Fires,” she recalls,” singing that “Bastrop was ‘burning down’ and . . . the SMFD came honking down the street in front of the studio with their sirens at the highest decibel during a perfect interlude in the song. We both just looked at each other open mouthed, and then embraced the fact his song would never again sound the way it did that night to the listeners.”
On “Revolving Door” (Sundays 5-7 p.m.) KZSM founding member and program host Rob Roark has featured an impressive range of performers—from a solo harmonium player to a seven-piece bluegrass ensemble, complete with upright piano.
Blake Farrar, host of “Texas River Tonk” (Fridays noon-2 p.m.), recalls his first show, almost a year ago. “Zach Welch drove out of the Dallas area early the morning of October 8, to appear on a radio show no-one had never heard of, to hang out with some guys he never met and play some music.” When Welch performed his first live song, “Drunkin’ Ramblins’ of a Hopeless Romantic,” “it pretty much become our Anthem.” Their guest played more of his “raw, emotionally intimate music,” Farrar reports, “before we let some random guy off the street play a song,” with apparently unsatisfying results. “We will not be making that mistake again!” Though you can’t just show up at our door to be heard live on KZSM, you can contact us, send a sample of your music, and probably arrange a guest appearance. Visit our Facebook page, KZSM. org True Community Radio, or email KZSMSan-Marcos@gmail.com.
