One-time Silver Lake pirate radio station gets its stage debut | Silver Lake News | theeastsiderla.com

2022-12-08 12:12:53 By : Ms. kindy zhao

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From Left to Right: Andy Cocker, Sue Carpenter and Jeff Cocker.

From Left to Right: Andy Cocker, Sue Carpenter and Jeff Cocker.

Silver Lake -- Someone once characterized Sue Carpenter as a disruptor before being a disruptor was even a thing, an analog-era provocateur claiming a slice of the radio airwaves, authorities be damned.

Picture a world without satellite radio or streaming services, a desert of dial-up Internet and the only tunes to be heard came from over the radio waves or what you bought at the local music shop. Desolate, indeed.

Unsatisfied with the norm, Carpenter, working under the alias Paige Jarrett, ran pirate radio station KBLT out of her Silver Lake apartment from 1995 to 1998. It was fun, edgy and, as far as the Federal Communications Commission was concerned, entirely illegal.

Carpenter’s late-’90s foray into pirate radio is the subject of “40 Watts From Nowhere,” an interactive theater experience from the team of Jeff and Andy Cocker, aka Mister & Mischief. The production is adapted from Carpenter’s memoir of the same name.

“It was a very different time,” said Carpenter, 56, “It was kind of lightning in a bottle, something that would never happen again. It was right at the edge of digital.”

Carpenter has lived in Highland Park since 2000 and works as a digital journalist for Spectrum News. Her first foray into pirate radio came while in San Francisco nearly 30 years ago. Always a music lover, she was unsatisfied with the music options in the Bay.

“I thought I could do it better,” she laughed.

After a brief stint broadcasting the illicit KPBJ in San Francisco, Carpenter took a job in Los Angeles and moved to Silver Lake. She brought her love of pirate radio - and sandwich-inspired call letters – with her.

From a small antenna strapped to the porch of her small Silver Lake four-plex, Carpenter blasted out the likes of Bikini Kill, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and more on 104.7 FM. The range from her apartment on Sanborn was limited and varied with weather conditions, but she once picked up the jams as far away as the 134.

Later, Carpenter bounced KBLT’s signal off the top of a high rise at the intersection of Sunset and Vine, covering all of L.A. The FCC eventually caught up with her, and shut down the fun.

“We were just asking for it at that point,” she said.

The Cocker team was looking for a new project and caught wind of the one-time pirate radio station. They approached Carpenter on creating an adaptation, and she gave her blessing.

“I liked it just because it was completely unique and different and very creative,” Carpenter said. “I felt like it was really in the spirit of KBLT.”

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