KCRW Guest DJ Project (Xeni)


This is a blog post I've been really excited to hit "publish" on for a while. KCRW is my favorite radio station in the world. I listen to them when I'm driving around LA, but also tune in online when I'm traveling, and subscribe to some of their podcasts, too, so I can listen while I'm running on the beach or wandering around in some strange city overseas where all other sounds are unfamiliar. They've pretty much been the most important source for my own personal music discovery habits over the past decade or so. The voices and personalities of the hosts are so familiar, they feel like friends or family — guiding ghosts who point me toward all that is cool, beautiful, and audible.

Because of this, it was an honor and surprise when KCRW's Rachel Reynolds — who reads Boing Boing! — invited me to participate in the station's Guest DJ Project.

Even more sweet, the fact that this guest DJ session would be hosted by my favorite KCRW DJ (I swear I'm not making any of this up), the inimitable music curator and velvet-voiced host Chris Douridas.

Chris and Rachel asked me to select songs that meant something to me personally, and revealed something of my life experience. Then, they invited me to come in and talk about the songs with Chris, and today, they've published the resulting music/conversation audio piece. It's the most personal thing I've ever done in public, if that makes sense? Telling the world about why your favorite songs are your favorite songs is like liveblogging your id, or having one of those dreams where you're riding the subway naked. So it feels weird to type this. But these songs actually do mean a lot to me, so I'm really excited to share the experience.

Links to Listen: Here is a downloadable MP3. Here's where you can listen on a streaming web player. And here's the text transcript.

Tracklist:

1.) Tomita – Claire de Lune
2.) Bad Brains – Banned in DC
3.) David Byrne and Brian Eno – The Carrier
4.) Lucho Gatica – Encadenados
5.) Ryuichi Sakamoto – Boing Boing video episode with Joi Ito