Max Diez

35 years ago, Last Will hung out with an up and coming local band that would forever leave their mark on the Bay Area music scene and the rest of the world.

Tune in on Monday, July 22nd @ 10pm to hear his conversation with Green Day before they hit the stage at the Berkeley Square way back on Saturday – July 22nd – 1989.  It was the first radio interview Green Day ever did.

Tune in on Monday, July 15th @ 6pm when Cuppa Joe hosts Oakland guitarist, composer, and educator, Jas Stade, for a live in-studio performance and interview.

Stade will play the KALX Co-Announce show at The Chapel on July 25th with Chris Cohen, April Magazine, and DJ set by Andy Cabic (of Vetiver).

Jas cultivated a love for guitar at a young age – playing in classical guitar ensembles, DIY generator shows, and musical theater productions, growing an appreciation for the versatility of the instrument.

Stade currently composes and performs with Gumby’s Junk, an art-punk project based in Oakland. Gumby’s has performed extensively throughout the Bay Area, crafting oblique & fantastical sounds.

Photo: Addie Briggs

Join Massari on Thursday, July 11th @ 4pm when he sits down with English bass guitarist, composer, and music producer, Jah Wobble, before he plays the Great American Music Hall in SF on Wednesday, July 17th.

Jah Wobble, born John Joseph Wardle on August 11, 1958, gained prominence as the original bass player for Public Image Ltd (PiL), a post-punk band formed by former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon (Johnny Rotten).

His distinctive bass lines and experimental approach to music have made Wobble a notable figure in the world of alternative and world music. He has a vast back catalogue , including three big anthologies.  He still tours extensively with his band The Invaders of the Heart.

Jah Wobble’s enduring impact on the music scene, his willingness to experiment with various genres, and his open-minded approach to collaboration make him a compelling figure and a potential role model for those seeking artistic innovation and exploration.

For his current tour, Wobble will be performing Metal Box – Rebuilt in Dub.

On Tuesday, July 2nd @ 7pm, B-Fly speaks with the one and only Big Freedia before she hits the Bay Area to play this year’s Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland on Sunday, July 7th.

Known as the larger-than-life ambassador of New Orleans Bounce music, Big Freedia is a nationally recognized hip-hop artist, TV personality and cultural influencer.

In addition to four critically acclaimed releases, 3rd Ward Bounce (2018), Louder (2020), Big Diva Energy (2021), and Central City (2023) Big Freedia, known as the Queen of New Orleans Bounce, also appeared on numerous high profile projects, including Beyoncé’s Grammy award-winning, “Formation,” and on Drake’s “Nice For What,” where she brings her distinctive voice and signature catchphrases to all her work. In 2021, she covered “Judas” on Lady Gaga’s Born this Way The Tenth Anniversary album.

Big Freedia is known for her infectious energy and personality. Known by her fans as the “Queen Diva,” Big Freedia is a loud and proud advocate for racial and gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights.

Tune in on Thursday, June 27th @ 6pm when Roscoe 2000 speaks with Bay Area based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, Chris Cohen, ahead of his upcoming show at The Chapel in SF on Thursday, July 25th.

Chris Cohen has plied the inside and outside folds of pop musical possibility since at least 1978, when he first set infant drumstick to skin at the tender age of three, initiating decades of sonic experimentation across multiple bands and nearly a dozen recordings.

On July 12th, Cohen will release his fourth full length album, Paint a Room, on Hardly Art.

This time around, Cohen has never had as much to sing so directly as he does on Paint a Room, his first album in five years. If Cohen’s meanings have previously lurked inside the tessellated musical layers he built alone, they are newly clear and resonant here, animated and underscored for the first time by a band playing in real time.

There is the endless miasma of state violence on the subversively melodious opener “Damage,” the existential exhaustion of modernity on the horn-traced jangle “Laughing”: this is Cohen communicating with friends not only through his deep understanding of groove, harmony, and hook but also with his listeners through songs that croon of our uneasy little era.

Paint a Room both reckons with reality and conjures an alternate one, where nighttime walks and a neighbor’s wind chimes offer endless escapes for the imagination, space for the mind to roam. Sublime and sunlit, these 10 songs consider dreamy new ways out of old predicaments, clearly stating the problem and dancing and singing their way somewhere new.

Photo: Kate Garner

Tune in on Monday, June 24th at 8:30pm to hear Fizz in conversation with Chicago based trio, Pixel Grip, ahead of their 1015 Folsom show on June 30th in SF.

Pixel grip is resolute yet variable. The Chicago-based trio takes inspiration from the dimly-lit stages they dominate and the deepest realms of the human experience.

Over the last four years, the band has traversed the depths of the North American underground scene, selling out clubs and winning over fans with their indelible live performances.

The group’s sophomore album ARENA is a 10 track exploring avant pop, EBM, and minimal wave released via Feeltrip Records. The album’s pounding dance rhythms were inspired by the group’s shows supporting their 2019 debut Heavy Handed: “being in an audience of freaks, queers, fetish people, all in the same room sweating together, and we all knew our purpose, and we were manic and arrogant,” vocalist Rita Lukea says.

Lukea and bandmates Jonathan Freund and Tyler Ommen used crowded clubs as inspiration for refining ARENA during the pandemic that cut off safe socializing. The group conceived of nightlife as a respite from the titular arena, the combative conditions of everyday life.  “My head is also an arena,” Lukea says. “Swinging from mania to depression, struggling with my body image and eating disorders, addiction, anxiety, and gender confusion. When you are different, you don’t have a seat at anyone’s table. The ARENA album is me saying f*#k your table.”

Photo: Alexus McLane