Music Life Radio

Erik Core interviews Kate Knox about her role as an organizer for the international punk rock festival BOBFEST.  The BOB stands for Bremen – Germany, Oakland – California USA, and Bath – England and every couple of years the festival  rotates between these three cities. Folks come from all over to get together and enjoy […]

Singer-songwriter  Crystal Monee Hall is perhaps the hardest working person in music. The Virginia-born native came to Oakland by way of New York, where she spent several years singing in the Broadway musical Rent. Her debut album River Train is a mix of folk, soul, gospel, and rock. We talk to Crystal about River Train, her love of […]

J.P. Kallio is a Finnish born singer-songwriter best known for his work in the traditional irish folk band Sliotar.  This however is the story of his new  band JPKallio.com, a Dublin based indie rock band that mixes classic and punk rock to form their basis. The band features J.P. on vocals and guitar, Tomek Jastrebski […]

Chuck Lindo‘s current projects include The American Professionals, and the indie rock band Actionslacks. Chuck hails from the St. Louis punk band The Nukes, the surf-inspired Jumbo Shrimp (featuring Dead Kennedy’s East Bay Ray and Klaus Flouride), and alt rock band Dryspell. In 2007, Chuck founded music house Jingle This with partner John Schulte. They […]

Carole Sauter joins us today on Music Life Radio to talk about her personal history, and relationship with music. She is a flute player in the Gateway Concert Band, a community-based concert group, and she is the mother of MLR’s host and executive producer, Dan Sauter. Having survived two husbands, a career in teaching, Carole […]

Gary Tubbs of the progressive metal band Tetrafusion speaks with MLR’s Josh Almond about his band. What is progressive metal – well in this case throw in some Dream Theater, a hearty scoopful of Rush, a dash of Live, a meaty chunk of Metallica, and mix liberally with Jazz, and Classical influences, and top of with […]

Stephen Tobolowsky is a master storyteller,  an actor appearing in over 150 movies and TV shows, and is a man with a remarkable musical background. We talk to Stephen about his upbringing,  his early band Cast of Thousands who recorded with a young Stevie Ray Vaughan, and his friendship with Jimmie Vaughan on the set of Great Balls […]

Cecilia Populus is the editor of the music magazine On the Tip of My Tongue (formerly of Ears and Mouth), which also used to be the name of the music performance and interview show on San Francisco Channel 29, Public Access Cable TV that she produced and directed. MLR talks to Cecilia about the trials and tribulations […]

Derek Theron is a singer-songwriter from Boston MA, and a two-time ”Billboard World Songwriting Contest” award winner. He is the guitar player and vocalist for the rock  band “6S”, with Mike Sedani (bass) and Dave Perry (drums), named after the number of a rented studio room – as it rhymed with “success”. Derek’s songwriting vision […]

Jon Herington is regarded as the “guitarist for the stars”, playing with notable greats Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, and Madeleine Peyroux. In his youth his high school band opened up for Bruce Springsteen, and he went on to study jazz and classical music composition in college. He was awarded a national Endowment for the Arts […]

Moon Hooch is a Brooklyn based collaborative trio featuring Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen on tenor saxophone, and James Muschler on drums. They write their songs as electronic music, and then perform them using acoustic instruments. This approach produces music that is a fascinating combination of house, dance, drum and bass, jazz, world and classical […]

Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits. Part Two – Interview with Dan Abbott (guitar, vocals) and Corbett Redford (vocals), the talented musical comedic duo who make up the band, who have reformed after a 10 year hiatus. Today you could easily make comparisons to Tenacious D or Flight of the Conchords, but Bobby Joe […]

Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits. Part One – Interview with Dan Abbott (guitar, vocals) and Corbett Redford (vocals), the talented musical comedic duo who make up the band, who have reformed after a 10 year hiatus. Today you could easily make comparisons to Tenacious D or Flight of the Conchords, but Bobby Joe […]

Eric Riel, is a poet, an IT professional, and an avid gamer. Eric describes his creative process, talks about his inspirations, tells us some funny stories, and reads selections from his poetry collection.  Poetry and music have a distinct connection, and so as an experiment we set Eric’s poems to music from Kevin MacLeod‘s Incompetech […]

Aviv Cohn, who goes by the moniker “the Widest Smiling Faces”, is a singer-songwriter from New York City who has released one independent self-titled album. Aviv talks about his experience playing with NY singer-songwriter David Peel & The Lower East Side Band, how he sees music in colors (a form of synesthesia), and we discuss work […]

Kevin MacLeod, a composer who runs Incompetech.com, one of the most popular Royalty Free Music sites on the internet, talks about his creative process, his business model,  the advantages of the Creative Commons licensing structure for composers and musicians, and why current copyright law is out of place in today’s age.  We also discuss life […]

Hot Fog is a San Francisco metal band, a late 70’s early 80’s metal experience with elements of Iron Maiden and Metallica.  We talk metal music, listen to songs from their latest EP  Wyvern and Children First,  and even discuss the glory of Dungeons and Dragons! This is a high octane interview with all four […]

Powell St. John was in the Waller Creek Boys (with a young  Janis Joplin) while at the University of Texas in the early 60’s.   He went on to form the St. John the Conqueroo, wrote songs for the 13th Floor Elevators (featuring Roky Erickson), and helped to found the San Francisco band Mother Earth with Tracy Nelson. […]

Powell St. John was in the Waller Creek Boys (with a young Janis Joplin) while at the University of Texas in the early 60’s.   He went on to form the band St. John the Conqueroo, wrote songs for the 13th Floor Elevators (featuring Roky Erickson), and helped to found the San Francisco band Mother Earth with […]

Wendy De Rosa is a musician, author, and an intuitive energy healer.  Wendy talks about her musical background, her work as a solo artist and as a member of the Colorado based band Mosaic, and how she got into the world of energy healing.  A day after our interview I had a session with Wendy […]