From protests to punk to pandemic: KALX celebrates 60 years of student-run radio at UC Berkeley

BERKELEY — News reports on anti-war protests of the late 1960s. Play-by-play for Oakland A’s games in the ’70s. A 1985 interview with infamous cult killer Charles Manson. An early live-in-studio performance by a teenaged Green Day. Public-safety announcements through the Covid pandemic.

KALX has broadcast them all.

This year, UC Berkeley’s student-run radio station — streaming online and at 90.7 on the FM dial — is celebrating 60 years of broadcasting, solidifying its place as one of the longest-running college radio stations in the U.S.

There’s something that feels unique about college radio; these stations proudly prioritize discovery and connection over professional polish and commercialism — and they’ve endured into a modern age where internet and streaming apps offer seemingly infinite content at the touch of a button.

Since 1962, KALX has helped amplify decades of social change through its creative curating for listeners, priding itself on a track record of spotlighting local bands, activists, artists, and community members.

Most recently broadcast from an unassuming room in the basement of the university’s Social Sciences Building, the hundreds of volunteers that have brought local news, sports and music to life showcase what’s possible when a community has access to an extensive musical library, a no-holds-barred attitude towards programming and a microphone.

Mike Rizzi, one of two music librarians at KALX who has volunteered at the station since 1984, said the organic cross-section of class, culture and ages among DJs has led to more diverse, engaging playlists than any commercial radio station or AI streaming algorithm can cobble together.

“The people are what make KALX KALX, but this (extensive library) helps,” Rizzi said, pulling a hot pink “Pink Slip Daddy” vinyl from 1988 off the cramped shelves. “It’s all a labor of love, and people can feel that love.”

Over the last four decades, there’s a good chance KALX listeners have enjoyed tunes hand-selected by Dan “The Muse” Musicant.

After hosting more than 1,700 shows over 42 years, the volunteer DJ has yet to tire of slinging setlists, answering hotline phone calls and discovering new music at the radio station tucked away in a basement on campus.

“This library is deeper than anyone can possibly master — there’s more music back there than you can realistically ever check out,” Musicant said, in between thumbing through the stack of albums at his feet looking for the next album to cue up. “It’s an infinite challenge. I’m never feeling like, ‘Oh, I’ve got it.’ I’m always on edge and it feels like a whole new thing, every single show.”

But many people, including Musicant, missed out on the radio station’s early “pirate” broadcasts in 1962. Simply dubbed “Radio KAL,” a mixing board hand-wired out of a cigar box and transmitters built on aluminum cafeteria trays helped a handful of UC Berkeley students successfully hit the airwaves, live from the “Unit 2” residence hall basement on Dwight Way.

“I didn’t even know about it living in the Unit 1 dorms — right across the street, one block away,” Musicant recalled, before thumbing through the stack of albums at his feet to cue up the next song on the turntable in time. “I never found out about it until 1980. But once I started listening, I was just drawn right in.”

Tim Lynch, the station’s general manager, said it’s the station’s ongoing mission to discover the new and celebrate the old that has kept KALX socially relevant and financially solvent for six decades.

That’s one reason why KALX has embraced technology, rather than shrink behind the rise of streaming platforms and the internet. Lynch said that adaptive attitude may have helped KALX survive at the start of the pandemic.

“One of the things I’m really proud of  is that when the pandemic began almost three years to the day, we were told at midnight, ‘The campus is closing and you’re going off the air,’” Lynch said. “We said ‘Okay, campus may be closing, but we’re not going off the air.’”

While UC Berkeley funds a small portion of the operation, the majority of its financial support flows directly from listeners who want to do their part keeping KALX spinning.

“I’m steeped in music — I live in music — but still, 70% of what I hear on the station every day, I’ve never heard before,” Lynch said. “(Commercial radio’s) target audience is whatever gets the most money. Our goal is not money, our goal is love of music. We just happen to have enough people that love our music that they choose to give us enough money to keep us alive.”