Riot Radio

Riot Radio is a free internet radio show that plays independent punk music from around the world. The program was started by it's host Kevin in 2002 as a a college radio show on WONY at the State University College of Oneonta New York.

 Oneonta is the middle of nowhere; no judgement meant, nowhere can be a nice place. This particular nowhere is about halfway between Binghamton and Albany, NY. But point being, the 180 watts of WONY don't reach any further than Oneonta, and really don't need to. College radio stations like that can be very unusual little mutants; evolving independently of the rest of the college radio landscape. Those are always my favorites.

I discovered this show on a cassette tape. I bought a Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine cassette for $1 at a record store. When I got home, I popped in the tape and discovered that instead Trent Reznor had been overdubbed with Riot Radio Episode # 73. [LINK] That tape was made around 2015, meaning that it circulated for a decade before it found me. I listened to the whole tape, it's weird, the music highly eccentric and obscure. Kevin has tapped into something that mere mortals know nothing about. I needed to ask him a few questions:

 

JF:  How does a small town kid  from Oneonta discover the obscure corners of global punk rock?

Kevin: I'm actually not from Oneonta. I only went to college there. I'm from a town called Lake Grove, which is in Suffolk County (Long Island), New York. Not so much a small town but a dense suburb that is just a short train ride from the city. I had a pretty stereotypical suburban punk experience. From a young age I had, let's say, low parental oversight, ha. I was basically feral, outside a lot.  

I have an older brother, and when we'd have to do yard work we'd drag out this big boom box and he'd play tapes. One day he put in NOFX Punk In Drublic and things just clicked. It was like an epiphany. Like "this is what I've been looking for" kind of a thing. I was attracted to the speed of it immediately. But listening to it, it was like "oh here's people who are asking the same questions that I am, too". And there was humor in it, which I liked. It just made sense. I wasn't angsty. I wasn't depressed about my situation. I didn't want to get stoned and chill out. I was angry. I wanted to burn things. And I was goofy. I was a weird kid who didn't really feel like he fit in anywhere. I was such an oddball. Even among the kids that I most closely related to I didn't fit in. And then suddenly you find out that there's this whole world of people like you. There's a name for what you are. You're a Punk. So I started eating up whatever I could get my hands on. And those older kids, when they found out that's what I liked, they started feeding me stuff too. And that was a great area for that kind of growth. 

As I got older I found out there was a solid local scene there. A short train ride and you're at CBGB's. There was a record store that catered to that scene and sold comps. The Creep Records comp from back then, with Plow United, Violent Society, The Boils, Super Hi-fives, The Orphans. My brother had that. I would steal it from him all the time. He was very instrumental in me getting into punk. He was showing me new bands all the time. 

JF: Can you tell me about starting your show out at WONY?

Kevin: I went to college at Oneonta because I really needed to get out, ha. I didn't know what I was doing, really. I had no plan. I needed to go somewhere and highschool was ending so I applied to a few colleges with the idea to just go wherever was furthest away. Oneonta was the only school that accepted me, ha. But a college town like that isn't really a friendly place for Punks. It's a small town. Very racist and small minded, even with all the college kids. Tons of bars but they all cater to a way more preppy club scene. There was nothing to do. Then I found my clique: a few other punks with nothing to do, but again they were older. We'd wander around, get stoned, cause trouble. If there was a show anywhere within a 4 hour drive we'd be there. Albany and Poughkeepsie both had great venues. We'd drive out to Worcester Massachusetts and see Dropkick Murphys play like once a month. We'd go to shows all over. But when those guys hit their senior year I knew I was going to be left alone. So I got this idea to start a radio show. It was something to do. I figured if there were other punks in that town it'd give them something to do. It was like putting out a distress signal, ha. And it worked too. 

The people running WONY let me do a show  Friday and Saturday night. None of the other college kids wanted those slots because they were all going to the bars. I'd shove as many CD's as I could into a backpack with a six pack of beer and I'd go do my show. Friends would come up. People would call in. I'd play Angelic Upstarts and old cabbies would call in blown away. Every Halloween I'd do like 4 hours of the Misfits. People would call in and let me know they appreciated what I was doing. I'd talk on the phone for whole shows sometimes. But I was playing a lot more of the classic stuff then. Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Cock Sparrer, Blitz. I'd work in more obscure stuff sometimes, but this was like 2002, the internet wasn't what it is now. MP3's were like just invented. But also that wasn't the purpose. The point then was to play the songs every punk knows, or should know. Give people a good backtrack to party too. It was a really great time. I still love listening to college radio.

 

JF: Riot Radio is much older than Zobnoba, what's the connection to that website?

Kevin: In college I met these two dudes who became some of my best friends, Jonny Wray and Dan Fitz. Jonny and Dan were friends since they were kids and came from a small town upstate New York. But Jonny came up with that name, Zobnoba. The guy was really ahead of his time. Again this is right when MP3's were invented. Like, the first year Napster existed. Jonny was a Music Industry major, which I ended up studying too with a focus on Audio Engineering. Jonny came up with this idea to start a record label that was strictly digital. He called it Zobnoba Records. He was super into zombie movies and he was playing around with that idea, but really it's a nonsensical name. 

So Jonny and Dan graduate and they don't want to go back to their small town. Jonny has a brother who's a head chef at a college in Philadelphia and can get them jobs washing dishes. So they move down there. I follow suit once I graduate and all three of us are sharing a house with some other kids in Philly. Jonny is trying to build an AM Radio transmitter so we can start a pirate radio station, but we couldn't really get it to work. We'd play the Stooges and drive around seeing how far we could get before we'd lose reception. The thing would only reach to like the end of our block. So Jonny says lets just do a podcast. This is in 2005. No one knew what podcasts were. I didn't even know. iPhones don't exist. iPods were like a brand new thing. Only a handful of podcasts even existed, one of which is done by Mike Watt the bassist from the Minutemen. And we're all big fans of the Minutemen and a documentary on them called We Jam Econo just came out and is having a major effect on us. So we build a recording studio in the basement, real DIY like, and we start recording our own music to play on a podcast Jonny is calling Zradio. Z for Zobnoba. And we call it a "radio show" because no one knows what a podcast is. But me and Jonny are both bass players, and Dan doesn't play anything, he was an English major. So our music is weird. We're messing around with drum machines. Dan buys a cheap guitar and literally starts beating the hell out of it. Jonny is taking little kid's toys apart, the ones that make noise, cracking them open and soldering new wires to them to make them sound all crazy, something I later learned was called Circuit Bending. Dan is going on Myspace, which was also pretty new then, and finds other weirdos experimenting with sound and starts asking them if we can play their music on the show and we find out there's tons of kids doing this shit. 

Within a year people are sending us music from all over the world. We're doing two episodes a week and live streaming them over the internet. We find there's a whole scene of this shit in Philly and we're having shows in our basement and recording them and streaming those live over the internet. Bands on tour are sleeping at our house and at times we're helping kids from other countries connect with people all over the US to plan out their tours. Everyone wants to know what the Z stands for and the explanation about Zobnoba Records is kind of besides the point now. The Z now is like a symbol for what we're doing. It's not just DIY. It's Do-It-Yourself but By-Any-Means-Necessary. That whole time was wild, and it was fun, and new, and exciting. And we're helping to encourage and promote this scene of experimental noise weirdos, but at the same time, I'm a punk. As fun as it is, and I have a lot of really good friends that came out of that scene, I'm still feeling like an outsider. Like everyone knew me as the punk kid who comes to all the noise shows. And I want to do for Punk what we're doing for Noise. So in 2010 I bring back Riot Radio as like a Zradio spinoff.  Which is why it's on the Zobnoba website, and why I play a sound clip saying "Riot Radio is brought to you by Zradio" at the end of every show. Doing Zradio educated me on what the Riot Radio Podcasts purpose was going to be.

JF: You mentioned that you were dubbing RioT Radio episodes onto blank tapes and leave them at shows. How far did you manage to distribute those tapes?

Kevin: Yeah, I used to find whatever tapes I could for free and "recycle" them by dubbing episodes of Riot Radio to them. I stole a roll of UPS labels from work ( I work in a warehouse) and I'd use the labels to cover up whatever the tape art was, and then I'd scribble the word "Free" real big on it. Somewhere else I'd write "Punk and Oi from around the world." Then when I'd go to shows I'd just drop a bunch on the merch tables. But this was mostly at shows in Philly. I saw Pat Society from Violent Society grab one once. That made me really happy, ha. I have no clue how far they've gotten. I'm actually surprised you found one in West Chester. Although that's not too far. I played in a band for a while called Mindless Attack, and we got out of Philly occasionally. The furthest we went was to Miami so I might have spread some down there. I get sent to Chicago by my work once a year. I stuck a few in a record store called Bucket Of Blood up there once.

JF: Since you're not using the studio at WONY anymore, what's your set up for producing the show now?

Kevin: My setup is super basic. It's still exactly what I was using when I started the podcast in 2010 and it's still in my bedroom, ha. My neighbor back then was throwing away a super old karaoke machine and I pulled this mixer off it, straight out of the trash. I still use that, with a mic and an iPod, also old as shit, ha. And it all goes into my laptop. Any music I get I convert to MP3. I create the playlist that goes on the iPod, and I just play the songs, adjust the levels, drink beer, stop the playlist to talk. I have a discman for background music. I record everything in real time just like I was back at the radio station even though it doesn't get broadcasted live. People have asked me to do that but I need to keep Riot Radio more guerilla style because I never know when I'll have time to do it. Keeping to a schedule doesn't really work for me. 

8. Over the 20 years you've been hosting the program how has your taste in music changed? 

Kevin:  When I was 18 I was one of those too-cool-for-school punks. I turned my nose up at anything that wasn't punk. I judged people for what they listened to. I was a real shithead, ha. But if it was Punk I was listening to it. From skate to street to Oi! I loved all of it. I still do. But now I listen to everything. I like Blues. I like Reggae. I like wild weird shit and old soul and funk. I love salsa music and dudes like Tito Puente. It's all great. It's all history and you can learn something from all of it. I get real curious about what younger kids listen to these days too. I wanna hear the new stuff. It's all cool now as far as I'm concerned. If it moves you, then it's great. But pertaining to the show it's basically the same music. I played the classic stuff when I was on WONY in 2002. Since the podcast started the focus is on promoting the little guys. Giving them exposure. Punk lives and thrives in the Local Scene and with the youth. Supporting all that is the purpose of the show. And there's people making great fucking music out there. People should hear it.

JF: At some point you graduated and left WONY (I presume). What was the conversion from broadcast to podcast like from a technical perspective?

Kevin: From a technical perspective the only difference is now my gear is trash, ha. It's the same set up basically, just crummier. But having that DIY background made it easy. As long as you don't care about having fancy high tech gear it doesn't really matter. And you don't really need it. Technology now is crazy. You can make a podcast with literally just your phone. The hardest part about the switch was explaining to everyone what a podcast was. Trying to promote a podcast then wasn't easy. You constantly had to tell people "it's like a radio show but you download it." This was flip phone era and a lot of people didn't like that idea; especially punks. You'd tell a punk they have to go on the internet and they'd give you this face like they were about to spit on you, ha!

JF: When you left WONY Oneonta what drove you to keep the show going?

Kevin: This is going to sound corny but I really feel like Punk Rock saved my life. I was this weird little dude who thought I was completely alone, and it showed me I wasn't. It gave me a safe space to be myself. It taught me to be proud of who I was. It gave me the music that continues to get me through life, especially when things get tough. And it gave me a community where I met some really beautiful people. I feel like I owe a debt. If doing Riot Radio helps that in any way, or if there's a possibility it could help to remind some other kid out there that they're not alone, then there's no way I'm stopping.

JF: Are you working on anything else really cool you want to tell me about?

Kevin: Riot Radio has taken a few hits over the last few years so I'm really hoping to get it back up to steam in 2025. I've also been dabbling with bonus episodes for subscribers, so I'll definitely be making more of those. On top of that it's all been life stuff. I recently started trying to buy a house, which is a whole thing and takes up a lot of energy. If I'm ever able to actually get one though I hope to build a legit recording studio in it. And if I can do that I hope to start helping bands record demos and stuff. Maybe even start making music myself again. So if that starts happening I'll let you know. But it's all hanging on a big IF there, ha.