It’s something of a relief when friends have kids at the same time you do. Odds are they’ll be more tolerant when your weekends revolve around naps and birthday parties, and understand that you care more about a restaurant’s crayons and paper supplies than its craft cocktails and tapas menu.
So it was brilliant timing when DJs at KEXP, one of the most beloved independent radio stations anywhere, began having babies about 10 years ago, perfectly in sync with the region’s baby boom. With its plunge into parenthood, the station’s persona began to skew much more family-friendly.
For decades, Seattle’s KEXP has been a leader in noncommercial, donor-supported radio, helping launch and propel the careers of artists including Macklemore and The Head and the Heart. Located at 90.3 FM, it has grown to reach 200,000 listeners a week from around the globe. And more than ever before, it’s an outlet and community for families who favor TV On The Radio over Taylor Swift.
Photo: Joshua Huston Ava and Jack Graves, both 14, introduce a song on John in the Morning’s show. They’re at the station along with their mom, Stacy, for a tour. |
KEXP DJ John Richards, aka John in the Morning, launched the move toward kid-friendliness. It started with the realization that the options for celebrating Father’s Day with son Arlie were limited. “I have a kid. There’s nothing to do,” Richards said. “So I made an event I wanted to go to.”
That event is KEXP’s annual Father’s Day dance party, a celebration that over the years has included DJs spinning tunes, crafts, pizza-dough tossing, break dancing and dads busting a move with their kids.
Arlie’s now 10, and since that inaugural party in 2006, the kid-related events have expanded to include a Halloween dance party and parade, an annual in-studio performance of kindie rockstar Caspar Babypants complete with kid-packed live audience, school and camp tours of the station, and the occasional kid chiming in on-air. It’s been an organic evolution.
“We haven’t had to change who we are,” said Richards. “We’ve expanded to include everybody.”
And parents are glad about it. All of the KEXP kids’ dance parties have sold out. At the January groundbreaking for KEXP’s new home at Seattle Center, staff were shocked by the number of families who showed up. When children visiting the studio get a moment on-air, listeners respond with glowing emails.
“I get more requests for getting onto a guest list for [the dance parties] than for seeing a superstar,” said Darek Mazzone, a longtime DJ with daughters age 5 and 9. “Parents love KEXP.”
Photo: Joshua Huston KEXP’s annual Father’s Day dance party has included DJs, crafts, pizza-dough tossing, break dancing and dads busting a move with their kids. |
While those parents are tuning in to hear their favorite artists, younger listeners get an artfully delivered lesson in Music 101. KEXP DJs are passionate musicologists, and the hosts of specialty shows — including reggae, world music, blues, rockabilly, country, rap and American roots — are experts in their genres. The DJs play songs in a deliberate order to draw connections between music and artists, they explain musicians’ influences and how genres have morphed, and give context to provide a deeper understanding. Protest songs from Woody Guthrie carry lessons on U.S. history, while Arab hip-hop helps humanize people in the Middle East.
“I’ve been used as a geography lesson by a bunch of middle-school teachers,” said Mazzone, who hosts Wo’ Pop, a show featuring modern global music. Right now, his own daughters are into French pop and Afrobeat.
It goes to show that there’s no need to draw a bright line between adult and kids’ music.
“When we started having kids, it was like, ‘I don’t want to listen to Raffi-style music, or music that is dedicated to children,’” said listener Tony Van Zeyl. “Music is music.” That meant Van Zeyl and his wife, Lorie Bettelyoun, tuned into KEXP in their North Seattle home pretty much constantly. Their kids, 9-year-old Daisy and 5-year-old Riley, liked the station and the music, but it wound up delivering something more.
As a listener-supported station, KEXP holds regular on-air pledge drives to raise money. When Daisy was a preschooler, she heard the call to donate and it resonated. She drew a picture for the staff, gathered up some coins and asked to drop them off at the station, located near the Pink Elephant Car Wash off Highway 99.
“We showed up the first time to donate, and said, ‘Here’s a picture and a bag full of quarters.’ And they said, ‘You have to come say “Hi” to John [Richards] in the booth,’” Van Zeyl said. They did, and now both kids lobby for a trip to the station whenever a pledge drive starts.
“Daisy has brought in her entire piggy bank and donated $15. And we’ll say, ‘Are you sure? That’s all of your money,’” Van Zeyl said. “She’ll say, ‘It’s important. I want KEXP to continue.’”
Photo: Joshua Huston When kids visiting the studio get a moment on-air, listeners respond with glowing emails. |
Richards calls KEXP “the gateway nonprofit” that can help kids learn to value non commercial radio as well as the important work of nonprofit organizations.
While the station’s reach is international, staff take seriously their obligation to be a positive force in the city. DJ and dad Leon Berman hosts an annual food drive during his rockabilly show. KEXP regularly welcomes the mayor of Seattle to talk current events. And as the station builds its new facility, staff have taken pains to get public input in order to make the site a community resource. While KEXP is arguably the embodiment of the cool kids steeped in the cool music, its undercurrent is one of inclusion: bring your kids, bring your passion for some obscure artist no one has ever heard of, and join in.
Van Zeyl remembered feeling that love not long ago at a Bumbershoot show at the KEXP-sponsored stage. It was way past bedtime, but his kids were having a blast dancing to Passion Pit with a cluster of early-twentysomethings who seemed perfectly happy with their company.
“It really reinforces how much of a community KEXP is able to build,” said Van Zeyl, “that everyone would be so welcoming.”
