I remember where I first heard about Hollow Earth Radio. I had recently met a woman named Tiffany who was running a house-venue called the Dearborn House, and she had posted on Myspace about some friends who were starting an Internet radio station with a focus on local music, super independent off-the-radar type bands and strange and experimental sounds. I had never given Internet radio much thought, but this station, despite that, seemed to hit on all my interests. I would tune in at work all the time just to see what they were playing. I remember discovering local bands like The Webelos, and Beast Please Be Still. I remember hearing a person talking into the microphone at length, but the words were garbled and indecipherable. My favorite early memory was tuning in to hear 2020 Cycle’s Alex Kostelnik talking about the time he’d gone on a road trip with a lady who hadn’t changed the oil in her car in like a decade. Sometimes I dig that story up and listen to it again for old time’s sake (I can because it’s on the internet!). I was enchanted with Hollow Earth Radio, I was drawn into the mystery. I didn’t always like what I was hearing, but I was always eager to hear what would happen next.

Roughly 6 months into the station’s life, I had joined the ranks of the Hollow Earth DJs. One of the only requirements at the time was that we had to select ridiculous DJ monikers, so we had DJ Agave Syrup, DJ Eagle Feather, DJ Sta Prest, and I became DJ Knuckle Supper of the Records Schmecords Radio Show. I was given a time slot on Tuesday Afternoons, and I’ve been showing up for that slot more or less every week for the last 7 years. I’ve seen the station go through two moves, three sound boards, four computers, and god knows how many flash drives that have both shown up and disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I’ve seen the station grow from less than a dozen volunteers to many dozens of volunteers. The station continues to grow and evolve, and it’s been an absolute wonder to witness throughout the years.

In the early days, there were very few rules about what a DJ could do with their show. With the exception of hate speech, we were free and even encouraged to push boundaries, explore new territory, get outside our comfort zone, and try new and crazy things. I can’t tell you how fun and exciting it was. I once played a 17-minute whale song. Another time I brought my friend in, and we just goofed around on the guitar for 20 minutes (it was awful). I had always felt bored by how boxed-in and constructed all the real radio stations were, even KEXP had become predictable and cliché. I was determined to keep my show as wild and free as possible, and playing the Carpenters and Sun Ra back to back made me feel oddly powerful. To mix things up, I once did a two-hour show of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures, and I played some songs that I don’t think I’ll ever admit to now. We once worked with a guy in Scotland to broadcast a live punk show that was taking place in his living room. I remember Tonjia and Josh eating the gross Jelly Belly flavors live on the Kitty Massage show, and I laughed my ass off when they ate the Moldy Cheese flavor, made gagging noises, and we were left with radio silence as they ran to the bathroom to spit and rinse their mouths out. I once found a recording of the final moments of Jonestown on the digital library, and I’m not sure if anyone ever actually aired it, but I liked that Hollow Earth was a place where that maybe could have happened.

In later years, as a non-profit with an established mission statement, a public location, and grant money from the city, we’ve had to rein things in a bit. We still consider ourselves a free-form radio station, so no one is forced to play anything they don’t want, but there is a greater expectation to play music and sound that fulfills our role as a forum for artists who are local, independent, unsigned and/or unknown. The station has less of a Wild West feel to it, but that still leaves us plenty of room for big and crazy ideas. For instance, a few years back we teamed up with Jack Straw Productions to broadcast an entire performance of Eric Satie’s “Vexations,” which is a piano piece meant to be played 840 times, and took something like 20 hours to complete.

Hollow Earth Radio has often been a platform for big and inspiring ideas. Just the idea of turning our rag tag bunch into a legitimate and sustainable non-profit capable of paying rent on a space seemed like an impossibly huge dream, but we’ve found room for plenty of others to chase. Often times they revolve around Magma Fest, our annual music and arts festival. We once asked Sound Transit if we could host one of our shows on a light rail train, and to our surprise they agreed. So we had a huge crowd crammed into a train and rode from the I.D. to SeaTac and back, with a new band entering at every stop and playing a few songs. Another year we got not-quite-legendary proto-grunge band Thrown Ups to reunite, and play a wild and amazing show ending with the audience covered in shaving cream. In 2013, we flew Jan Terri to Seattle from Chicago to headline the final Magma Fest show of the year. Terri, whose song “I Don’t Want to Lose You Tonight” is often cited as having the worst music video ever made, played to a packed room at the Black Lodge backed by Heat Warmer. It was one of the most magical and uplifting musical experiences I’ve ever witnessed. A lot of these wilder moments are born from co-founder Garret Kelley. He is an unstoppable force of wacky ideas, and I think we are all floored every time he pulls one off. But he tries to push his drive onto the rest of us, encouraging us to dream as big as he does. For years, it had been a running joke for him to get me to ask Sonic Youth to play Magma Fest. One of my biggest regrets is that I never managed to contact them. Talks about this year’s Magma Fest have begun, and its exciting to see all the ideas swirling around while Garret leads us through the dream-big spitball phase.

I think what’s been most important for me though, is the community that’s grown around the station. I have met so many amazing people since getting involved. Some of my favorite musicians became DJs and I got to know them. Some of the DJ’s later became my favorite musicians. I’ve gotten to know promoters, record label owners, artists, designers, actual radio producers, and like-minded folks who are passionate about music and arts, and all of whom are or were involved in the growth of the station. It has played a huge role in shaping the direction of my life. Through the station, I have found homes to live in, I have found opportunities to earn a living, and I have found great friends, not to mention countless hours of amazing music that I never would have stumbled onto otherwise. It has provided the opportunity to share my friends’ music as well as my own. It has become a part of how I connect with Seattle, and how I connect with music. I am forever grateful to be a part of it.

Yet, with all that’s gone on these past seven years, I really feel like things are just getting started, like we’re just closing out the first chapter, and things are really gonna get going soon. It’s been a big year for us. We’ve just been approved by the FCC to operate a low-powered FM frequency. Sometime in the next year, Hollow Earth Radio is going to be on the radio dial. The station is abuzz with excitement. Things are going to change, and we’re exploring what those changes will look like. We’ve spent seven years with no FCC regulation, so that’s gonna be a huge adjustment. No more playing whatever we want all willy-nilly, there are now questions of obscenity and decency we have to consider. But I think in the long run, we will still be able to find plenty of room to do the crazy things we do without offending anyone. But more important, I think, is that we have to decide what roll we will play in the community that we are broadcasting into. As a low power frequency, we only have a range of a few miles, and our coverage is going to be largely in the Central District, where our studio is (don’t worry, if you can’t receive us, we’ll still be streaming online). We want to make sure that while we are still staying true to our mission statement, we find ways to fit in as a Central District Radio station as well. Hollow Earth Radio has always been about nurturing community, and openness to all people and all ideas, and I think now more than ever, that is the mindset that we need to have. We have the ability to become not just a voice in the community, but to provide a voice for the community, and that is just as important to us as debuting the newest cassette release from Seattle’s hot, new up-and-coming noise band. There’s gonna be a lot of changes, and I for one cannot wait to see what new direction we go in. But watching my language is gonna be really hard.