Let me first start out by saying that I had hoped to get this interview in much sooner, but the evening of the interview- I was feeling very sick and actually wound up in the hospital the very next evening! I had been unable to sleep for days and was starting to loose my mind, which also caused severe nausea and anxiety. But, apparently, no one could tell during the live on air portion of the interview. Whew! I had a huge headache and felt super dizzy, but I guess my actor skills kicked in and I went on auto pilot.

I have been wanting to write about Demolisten for awhile now. If you support the local music scene in LA at all, I think this show can really give you a great taste of what is out there before actually spending that $5, $8, $10 bucks on a live gig. They don't only play music from local LA bands though...they get stuff internationally, but still over half of it is from LA. This may change now that they are streaming over the internet, therefore, making it even more important for you to tune in to... all of you (even our international readers)! You never know when the next Beck, or Pixies, or Sonic Youth might be discovered.

I started the interview by chatting with the Production Engineer- Paul Horn(a real cutie Surfer looking dude) and then from there we start out live on-air and then end up at Fred Kiko's (the main Demolisten guy) house, going through their many CD and tape submissions. Besides Fred, there are two regular co-hosts Chad and Devin and then a sprinkling of occasional guests, including Doug, Quazar, Jose, Tinkerbell, etc. I was told that the three main DJs would be there, however, Chad was one hour late (which is the norm. anyway) and Devin was absent. However, Doug, and later Quazar were there to fill the gaps.

OFF AIR:
F: (talking to one of the cd players) Oh, come on, come on, just play...just play! Oh, KXLU! This is why fundraiser is so important- coming up in a mere three weeks or so...four weeks...we need new cd players, new turn tables, you name it.
(Now Fred gets one of many phone calls and he and the caller chat a bit about fundraiser and then Fred tells the caller to make sure to spread the word that KXLU is streaming now and says:)
F: Yeah, tell your friends in Paraguay.
Caller: (laughs and says) Yah, or Sierra Madre, where I can't pick you up.
F: See, that's what I'm talking about.
Caller: Yah. Hey- you have a good night!
F: Right on. (Now Fred turns his attention to Doug and says:) Oh, Doug sometimes, um, and actually... when we get really lazy... he actually runs the show and we'll just sit there and talk.
M: Really?
F: Cuz he's a pro.
D: No, you're the pro. Where's Devin?
F: I don't know, he's gotta be on his way.
(Demolisten's intro ends now and we go live. Fred starts out with his usual chit chat and talks about the cd problem briefly, then goes right into some new music by The Blondes. Fred answers another phone call, once we go off air again- why people call when the DJ is on air is just baffling! Duh! Off air again, we chat about music and Fred plays a song off of the new cd by The Green and Yellow TV and continues to answer phone calls. Fred tells me about some of the stranger people that call him. Then he plays the new cd by Los Super Elegantes and we continue chatting about bands- I tell him that I want to hear Gliss. Doug mentions he went to their show last night and enjoyed it. I also hand Fred the Dios cd, as I want to hear them as well.)
ON AIR:
M: Ya know, can I say one thing?
F: Yah, Mary's gonna say something.
M: Fred, I really appreciate how you mention the names of the bands and the songs like every two or three songs or so and you're very consistent with that. Cuz it's so annoying when you're listening to KXLU and like five or six songs go by and you're like "Whoa, I really like that one, I really like this one" and you don't know who the heck sang it.
F: Well, this is Demo listen, it's important. It's more important than on other shows. I think.
M: Yah, definitely. I just wanted to give you some props.
F: Thanks, Yeah, I do that, uh, consciously.
M: Very good, very good.
F: It's one of the few things that is done consciously around here.
M: (I laugh.)
F: So, Mary, uh, works for No-fi "Magazine". Well, I guess not "works," they don't really pay you, do they?
M: (I am silent.)
F: Oh, they do? Really?
M: They're working on it actually.
F: Oh, nice. Well, we don't get paid here, so it's okay.
M: Yeah.
F: And she's gonna write an article and, uh, you gotta give No-Fi props because they have Dios coming up in one of their issues- it's online, right?
M: Actually it's the current (September) issue... Dios is interviewed.
F: This is, uh, No-Fi- how do you say it?
M: No-fi "Magazine" dot com.
D: Where can we find that?
M: You can find it online at www.nofimagazine.com!
D: I'll have to check that out.
(we giggle at our shameless promoting.)
F: Doug, you're fitting in just fine.

The chatting and silly banter goes on and then we get back into some music, which is some very interesting music by a guy called Ariel Pink. Doug talks about meeting him at a show and he strangely sounds familiar to me, but I don't know why. Wait, didn't. I see some weird guy named Jon Von Jon or something like that do some lip sync thing on the tv show "30 Seconds To Fame" to a song that sounds an awful lot like this guy. Yeah. So, I continue to look through Fred's cds and make requests for Artichoke, Pine Martin, Gliss, etc. We chat more off air and Paul comes in and talks about their new keyboard player for The Temporary Thing. Paul tries to convince me not to put him in the interview- I ignore him obviously. Anyway, the chatting and joking goes on and on...but I will get on to the on air interview section now.

M: Are you guys ready for some questions?
F: Don't get me into any trouble Mary.
M: Aaahhhh, we'll see Fred. Okay, well, first of all, here's a question that I think everybody wonders...how many cds do you actually get a week? CDs or tapes?
F: Right, well, it's almost all cds now. We get anywhere from 5 to 50 in a week, it depends on if we've had any press recently. So, we haven't had any press in a while, so we've been getting mostly about five a week, sometimes a little bit more.
M: Okay, okay.
D: But half of them become coasters, right? (If you have ever been to Fred's house, you will notice he serves drinks on various cd cases, as he has no coasters.)
F: More than half.
M: (I laugh) Okay, that leads me to the next question...um...
F: 99.9999 percent of them are thrown into the trash, how's that?
M: No, but, how many do you...do you listen to every single one that comes in?
F: Every single... I don't listen to every single one, but somebody from Demolisten will listen to every single submission for at least five or ten seconds.
M: Only of the first song?
F: Yeah.
M: So it doesn't go any further that? Do you ever listen...
F: Well, it depends, it depends. If you can just know by, sometimes you just know right away their entire thing is just horrible. You hear it right away. It's just trash. Maybe they might clip through the next couple songs, which is the, an advantage of cds over cassettes. When we used to do it all cassettes, it was kind of a pain in the ass to fast forward to the next song. So it was just easier to just throw it away.
M: Wow. Uh-ha.
F: But that's the ultimate goal, when you sit there and you've got 30 tapes that you haven't listened to over the past month that you've got to listen to and you've got like an hour to do it, (he makes snapping sounds with his fingers), get through them. The goal is to throw most of them away.
M: But a band might not even get like a listen to their second or third song then? That's very likely?
F: Right. It's more than likely.
M: So, their first song should better be their best, right?
F: Their first five seconds better be their best.
(we laugh.)
M: Wooo- scary.
F: It's just, you know, there's just certain things we don't play and when it, when you know right away that that's what it is, you just, you know- it's not gonna happen. Techno, it's not gonna happen.
M: Okay. Anything else not gonna happen? That you should...
F: Well, Techno, and what I mean by Techno is you know, like the dance beat Techno...
M: Yah, the monotonous "Eeehhh, Eeehhh, Eeehhh..."
F: Yah, none of that.
M: Uh-huh.
F: Anything like, genre wise- no. Any genre...if you send me an opera tape and it's cool, if I think it sounds cool, I'll play it.
M: That is very true. I have heard some interesting stuff on Demolisten, Fred! (we laugh.) Well, then, what's your favorite thing about DJing for Demolisten?
F: My favorite thing? You get addicted to hearing new music. You get addicted to wanting to hear stuff that nobody else in the whole world has ever heard before. And I don't know why it is, but you just, you get, you just- it's never done, when I see the big pile of mail, I get excited- that I'm gonna find that one cool thing.
M: Really? Still? After how many years? Ten years or something?
F: Well, I've been at KXLU for, uh...
M: Oops, sorry! (I laugh.)
F: (he smiles) Uh, let's see...1990.
M: Okay.
F: So, how long is that?
M: Well, how long have you been doing Demolisten?
F: Since `93.

M: Were you the fist person to do Demolisten?
F: No. Demolisten started in 1984. By Agent Ava, who now lives in Hawaii. And uh, she did it for like four years- she discovered, not discovered, she got the Jane's Addiction demo and played it.
M: Oh wow.
F: And then, she did it for about four years and then these two other girls; Sandra and Dorothy- and they did it for another four years. They, they played like Guns and Roses, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and that whole Los Angeles late 80's, early 90's stuff...
M: Wow.
F: It was happening here at Demolisten.
M: That's crazy. Are you serious?
F: Yeah.
M: Guns and Roses was a Demolisten?
F: Oh yes, absolutely. A Demolisten band.
M: Wow. That's shocking.
F: Then I started in `93 and suddenly there were no more rock stars coming out of Demolisten except for Beck.
M: Oh, okay. Well, he's a poet.
D: How many times has Guns-n-Roses thanked KXLU or Demolisten?
F: Well, if you look, um, uh, on the first album, on the thank you list, they thank KXLU. Yeah, "Appetite For Destruction."
M: Really? Wow. Now, how did you end up taking over this spot?
F: Well, the girls, Sandra and Dorothy, just got bored of doing it. They had a different approach. They played anything that was Punk Rock. They would just play anything that was Punk Rock or remotely Punk Rock, and then some weird stuff. If it was heavy, they'd play it. So they go bored. And so they left and the show was just open, so a bunch of people applied for it, and I applied for it, and like fifteen other people applied, and Chad Misner, who is a co-host of this show, he was the program director at the time...he was the one who decided I would get it. And then a year later, when he graduated, I asked him to be the co-host.
M: Really? So you were the chosen one? Oh, and speaking of chosen ones... What's this I hear about Fred lately? (He is nominated for the best LA radio DJ in New Times Magazine this month!)
D: And you can actually go and vote, I did this today at www.newtimesla.com and you click on the readers poll and you can vote.
M: Awesome. Vote for Fred Kiko! Of Demolisten. Los Angeles. (I laugh. Fred's face is all red.)
F: That's our sign to get into some more music, we'll get back into the interview later. So far, it's pretty, it's okay.
M: So far, I've been mild.
F: I'm so afraid to do this live on the radio! And it was my idea too. So, I think we're gonna hear some Gliss.
M: Yeah! They played last night, but none of us were there.
D: Oh, I was...
F: Oh, you saw it, that's right.
M: Gliss is great.
F: So, this is a song called "Wonderful", this is Mary's request.
OFF AIR:
M: Oh my (Like I said, I was feeling rather ill during this whole interview and my head is really pounding now! I'm just doing my best to keep it together and not totally loose my mind. No sleep, medicines, ahhh...not good).
D: Well, this is good, I'm learning a few things.
M: Yeah, huh? A little history.
D: (to Fred) I thought you started Demolisten!
F: You did? You thought I started it?
D: Yeah, what's going on?
F: No, I'm not that smart.
M: Do other college radio stations have a demolisten?
F: There's one up in San Francisco at KUSF that has been the same guy for like 20 years... I forget what it's called. He played like Metallica demos, and uh, Primus... (The phone is ringing, Fred answers it.)
F: KXLU.
Caller: Is this "The Chosen One?"
(I crack up that people are quoting me.)
F: If only you say I am, I don't say that!
Caller: So do you think you're directly responsible for no rock stars coming out of Los Angeles? Since you took over Demolisten, there have been none?
F: No, that's not what I was saying. I said there's no rock stars that came out of this show. There's plenty or rock stars coming out of Los Angeles.
Caller: Is that your fault?
F: What? That there are plenty of rock stars coming out of Los Angeles?
Caller: Out of Demolisten?
F: Believe me, if it was my doing, there'd be no rock stars coming out of Los Angeles.
(Caller laughs.)
F: I'm just kidding. I don't know, what...What was your question?
Caller: My question is, do you think you're responsible for no rock stars coming out of Demolisten?
F: I don't know.
(We laugh.)
Caller: You don't know?
(we laugh more.)
F: I don't know how to answer that!
Caller: Okay, well, think about it and then maybe just give your answer on air.
F: Uh...okay...
(We are still laughing.)
Caller: Like do a call-in question
F: Oh, we can't do that. We're not allowed.
Caller: You're not allowed?
Quazar (who has just shown up): Cuz you might say this...
F: Okay, who is this?
Caller: My name is [name withheld]. You don't know me.
F: Okay.
Caller: That's all, that's all, I was just curious.
F: I don't know what the answer is. I try not to think about things.

(And that was it, they said good-bye. Quazar (of Quazar & The Bamboozled)officially joins the group. He brought some CDs and comments about the weird song by Ariel Pink.)

Q: That was jacked up! (We Laugh.) Was that your doing Doug? Did you bring that in?
F: No...
D: No, I met him.
Q: What's he like?
D: He was really nice. He really wanted to get his tape played on Demolisten.
M: (to Fred) Are you the Chosen One? I hope people start calling you that. That would be funny.
F: Did you hear my answer? He didn't even get it. When ever somebody asked Jesus if he was The Messiah, he would always say "that's what you say, not what I say" So, that's what I said to him. He didn't get it.
The off air chatter continues. I take pictures and Fred continues to answer phone calls. Quazar complains about Taco Bell getting his order wrong. Fred plays a really great band called Math and Science. Then we go back...
ON AIR:
M: If you could only listen to one more band for the rest of your life, who would it be?
F: A Demolisten band?
M: No.
F: Oh, man. I don't know. Ask me that one later.
M: Really, okay? People usually say like Pink Floyd or The Beat...
F: I would say The Beatles. Cuz you get so much. Different kinds of...
M: A good variety.
Q: What about a Demolisten band?
M: Yeah.
F: A Demolisten band that I would listen to forever?
M: Ooooo. Here we go!
F: Woodpussy.
M: Are you serious?
F: No, I'm just...(we all laugh)...I think even they would find that funny.
M: What about you Doug? You're gonna have to be Devin tonight. It's almost seven o'clock, so you're gonna be Chad and Devin.
D: Oh boy. I believe this is Fred's interview, not mine.
F: No, it's about Demolisten and you've become a part of Demolisten, as Quazar has.
M: Quazar, you'll be Chad.
Q: In place of Chad, I'd say Aaron Embrey.
F: Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Q: I'd say if I only had to listen to one Demolisten artist, it would be Aaron Embrey.
F: That's a good answer. Good answer! (we clap.)
M: (to Doug) Yes, now back to you.
D: Aaahhh, geez louise. I'm not tall enough to be Devin, so...but I am as sarcastic, so I'm gonna say Woodpussy (We all laugh).
Q: Oh, and Aaron Embrey is now in Jane's Addiction, who was discovered here, so it's all full circle.
F: Yeah, see how it's all full circle. But, you know, Perry doesn't even know...he doesn't even know what Demolisten is.
M: Really?
F: I've asked him.
M: Are you serious? Wow.
F: But at one point he donated his jacket, for a fund drive.
M: For KXLU?
F: Yeah.
M: Well, then, um, yeah...
F: But then I guess he forgot.
M: Ooo...evil!
F: I'm not evil!
M: No, not you,...Perry.
F: Perry's not evil either, he's just confused.
Q: Perry probably doesn't even know who Jane's Addiction is!
M: Oooo... wow!