The documentary “40 Watts From Nowhere” about '90s Los Angeles pirate radio station KBLT (formerly San Francisco-based KPBJ) is currently making the film festival rounds, with a few screenings so far, and more planned throughout the year.
The film is by and about Sue Carpenter, who started a microradio station on her own, and grew a community music scene at the same time. Her book, “40 Watts From Nowhere” came out in 2004, a few years after KBLT was taken off the air. A station volunteer turned over all sorts of video archives a few years ago, making way for this documentary of one station among many during the microradio movement in the 1990s. She hints of a New York-area screening of the film later this summer.
The book is a testament to Carpenter willing the station, and the community it built, into being. Legendary bassist Mike Watt hosted “The Watt From Pedro Show” on KBLT for two years, and writes of Carpenter’s “righteous commitment to creating an environment where folks could let their freak flags fly was truly a wonderful thing, and it’s something I’ll always feel very honored to have been a part of.”
Carpenter talked for about an hour here about her history on the air, and what community building can mean to a radio station, and what a radio station can mean to a community. We began by talking about sisyphean task of recording pirate radio archives.
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