So what makes this a Teach-In?

Each year on March 8th, aka International Women’s Day, we pre-empt (read as: cancel) all our regular programming for the day so we can hand over the microphones and turntables to bring in femme and femme-identifying voices with the purpose to educate, inspire, and empower.

It’s a unique form of activism and demonstration that shines a light on the inequities in media while producing a ton of awesome programming. A few weeks later, segments are released as episodes of the Amplify Women podcast where they live on for others to find, share, revisit, etc.

For some additional background on the Teach-In’s history, 2022’s  5-year retrospective is a great place to start and follow the evolution of the program.

Limited Edition Merch

For the first time EVER we are celebrating Amplify Women and literally showing our support…once this merch arrives anyway. From now until Tuesday, March 10th, you can pre-order our limited edition merch items to support XRAY FM and our continued mission to hold a microphone up to the best and brightest of Portland…and beyond. Pre-orders are open now: View Amplify Women Merch

2026 Schedule – March 8th & 9th

Note: schedule may be subject to change. BOLD indicates new scheduled time.

We mourn the loss of Keith Porter, Renee Nicole Good, and now Alex Pretti all murdered by ICE agents this year. All of whom should be with their families now, but instead their lives were stolen by senseless acts of violence. This act is an unmistakable blemish on our country and marks another step towards barbarism.  

Already Portland contends with attacks, kidnappings, and shootings at the hands of federal agents. Fear and chaos, the only things the Trump administration has to offer Americans, are on the rise. How long before one of our neighbors is murdered by ICE, just like Renee?

For Portland, for our country, and for the world, we want peace. We want an end to violence.  We want due process for all people. We want freedom.  

This is why we demand an immediate end to all ICE operations in our city.

Signed:

• Lincoln Fisher and Mary Thomas, Down the Rabbit Hole
• Joshua Justice, Ghost Tropic
• Elijah Morago-Anderson and Mamie Stevenson, Mating Calls
• Andy Mehos, Spirit of ‘79 Radio
• The Grand Yoni, the IMPACT! Sound
• Matt Cosby, LACED PUNCH
• John Lovell, SAVAGE BEAT 
• Carlos Block-Almazan, Blind Dates Chinga la Migra
• Erica Sinkovic, XRAY Volunteer
• Remy Watts, XRAY Board Member
• Kyle Gilmer, XRAY Volunteer Audio Editor
• Jack Maraglia, Stapled Sounds
• DJ Ambush, News With My Fiancé, Eastern Standard Time
• Morgan Jones, News With My Fiancé 
• Vinnie Balistreri, XRAY Board Member
• Nathan Carson, Heavy Metal Sewïng Cïrcle
• Eliza Sohn, Much Finer
• Will Hattman, Angle of View
• Eli Drain, XRAY Board Member
• Rick Mitchell, Jazz In the New Millennium 
• Tom Humphrey, Backroad to Nowhere 
• Anna Lipman, Rug Radio
• Theo Khoury, HEAD EAST
• Dan Bryant, Beautiful Music
• Steve Peckingham, It’s Country Funk Time!
• Kitt Fraser, The “In” Crowd
• Chelsea Murphy, The “In” Crowd
• Tanner Haley, Beaches
• Chris Nakayama, Beaches
• Jimb Fisher, Raise a Glass
• Kyle Reese, VCR TV
• Jan Epstein, Mod Lang
• Margaret Fenton, Six Beats Under
• Ash Sanders Spross, Wildflowers & Weeds
• Gary Dickerson, The Dickenbock Report
• Kristin Belz, Music for Neighbors
• Grady Alexander Preston II, XRAY Board Member

This statement only reflects the views of those listed.  This statement does not reflect the views of all XRAY FM community members, volunteers, staff, board, or otherwise.

On Sunday, March 8th, 2026, XRAY FM will once again take over the airwaves for the 9th Annual ‘Amplify Women’ broadcast, in honor of International Women’s Day.

Each year, ‘Amplify Women’ pauses our regular programming and invites our community to step into the studio — bringing together voices from Portland and beyond to educate, inspire, and connect. What began in 2018 as a teach-in has grown into an annual tradition rooted in collective action, creative exchange, and community-powered media.

For one full day, the airwaves are dedicated to conversations, music, and stories led by women, interrupting the routine, meeting listeners where they are, and shining a light on whose voices are heard in the media we consume.

In 2026, we’re expanding the scope of the broadcast to include local and international participation, with the help of this year’s fellow non-profit partner Women in Music PDX.

Call for Hosts & DJs

Applications are now open to host a talk show or music set as part of the 2026 Amplify Women broadcast. We welcome proposals from artists, organizers, educators, industry professionals, and community members who want to share music, knowledge, lived experiences, creative work and more in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Broadcast date: Sunday, March 8, 2026
Where: XRAY.FM
Application deadline: January 31, 2026

Apply here: https://forms.gle/SjCCKGFPjmhLz2Ho7

DJ David Schilling of Backseat DJ (every Wednesday from 5-6pm).

Closing in on 100 episodes of Backseat DJ, David helps you get through Wednesday traffic with new releases, sneak peeks, local artist, classics, b-sides and artist interviews.

What were your favorite singles of the year, what made them stand out to you?

“An incredible year for local Portland artists…like former Nero’s Rome and Man of the Year guitarist Tod Morrisey…and the amazing new voice of Nico Avery…and the 80’s throwback sounds of Nite Hike…and old home town favorites Hollow Sidewalks…all released excellent new material leaving you wanting more!”

The songs

“All The Ghosts” by Tod Morrisey
“Tiny Beat + The Way I Do” by Nico Avery
“Pumpin’ For Jack” by Hollow Sidewalks
“There’d Be Days” by Nite Hike

listen on spotify

Tell us about your favorite albums of the year…

“2025 was another fantastic year of new music! Bands from the 90’s like Franz Ferdinand and Manic Street Preachers still holding their own against relative new comers Wet Leg, Wolf Alice, bar italia and Ron Gallo. Plus some amazing releases from Pacific Northwest artists Glitterfox, Sea Lemon, Art d’Ecco and Youth Lagoon. What a great time to be alive.”

Top 10 albums

Moisturizer – Wet Leg (Domino)
Diving For A Prize – Sea Lemon (Luminelle)
The Clearing – Wolf Alice (Columbia)
Serene Demon – Art d’Ecco (Paper Bag)
Rarely Do I Dream – Youth Lagoon (Fat Possum)
Some Like It Hot – bar italia (Matador)
checkmate – Ron Gallo (Kill Rock Stars)
decoder – Glitterfox (Jealous Butcher)
The Human Fear – Franz Ferdinand (Domino)
Critical Thinking – Manic Street Preachers (Sony)

Finally, any favorite moments on the air for 2025?

“Backseat DJ Show #81 was a fun one full of tunes I love”
(listen here)

Scott Rutherford of 80lb. Cardstock (Sundays 8pm – 10pm).

Scott joined the XRAY airwaves in 2017 and has climbed his way from overnight newcomer to his current spot on Sunday evenings (producing over 370 shows along the way). Scott reliably sends us on an exciting weekly exploration of electronic & experimental frequencies from the intergalactic underground.

Favorite single from ’25…

“Amateur Hour” by Sunbathe (listen on bandcamp here)

Scott’s top 10 albums of the year (in alphabetical order)

Emotional Activity Room – Latest Fad (Fading Systems)
Human Metaprogramming – Lookout Mountain Laboratory (LML)
Materia Vibrante – Susana López (Elevator Bath)
Lake Fire – Loscil (Kranky)
MPU-106 – MPU-101 (Ilian Tape)
New Environments & Rhythm Studies – Andrew Pekler (faitiche)
January – Psalm Star Electric (Kino Disk)
Textures And Tonalities For Analogue Synthesizers And Percussion – Rick Reger (Aural Terrains)
Public Works And Utilities – Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan (Castles In Space)
Hrafnamynd – Patricia Wolf (Balmat)

Scott says…

“So many great releases in 2025. Hard to boil things down to a Top Ten. Check out our 2 Best Of shows to hear dozens of our favorite releases (Show #375 and #376)”
Listen to episode 375 here – Best of 2025 #1
and Episode 376 here- – Best of 2025 #2

Ok bonus question, what’s the best song you heard on another XRAY DJs show?

“Pretty much everything on DJ Gilliflower’s XRAY show Turtles Have Short Legs.”

We couldn’t agree more, check out Turtles Have Short Legs with DJ Gilliflower every Tuesday at 2pm on XRAY FM.

Steven Cantor of Beats and Pieces (Tuesdays, 8pm-10pm).

Steven is a veteran DJ with over 25 years of experience on the airwaves in Portland including at stations OPB and KMHD. He continues with the excellent Beats and Pieces on XRAY FM every Tuesday night. Steven says “despite the orange monstrosity managing to rapidly destroy a large amount of what was not terrible about this country, the amount of terrific music produced by artists this year was beautiful to behold.”

Check out Steven’s favorites from 2025.

Top 10 Albums

The Ordinary Life Of A Magic Woman by ESKA (Earthling)
Black Swan by Robin Mullarkey (self-released)
Organised Delirium by Tamara Stefanovich (Pentatone)
Nilam by ganavya (Leiter)
honey from a winter stone by Ambrose Akinmusire (Nonesuch)
Pressing Matters by Simon Grey (GroundUP)
ProjektDrums Vol. 2 by Petter Eldh (Edition Records)
Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Ubique featruing Claire Chase, Cory Smythe, Katinka Kleijn, Seth Parker Woods and Anna Thorvaldsdottir (Sono Luminus)
Hopecore by Anatole Muster (self-released)
Dobry Duch by Jadzka Klapa (self-released)

Ok, what about singles?

“I “singled” these two out as they were only released as singles and so couldn’t be included in best albums.”

“Perspectiva” bw / “Para Aleph” by Fuensanta (GroundUP)

DJ Wednesday of Six Beats Under (Mondays 9pm-10pm)

Since 2021 DJ Wednesday has been on our stellar Monday night lineup spinning a mix of goth, shoegaze, post-punk, ethereal, darkwave and dark 80s including classic tracks and new tunes!

What do you have to say about 2025?

“It was a stellar year in music in 2025. So many albums and so hard to pick just the top 10. Some highlights were new music from Strange Boutique and this album fully delivers from start to finish. Another highlight of the year was so much post punk and shoegaze and in particular from the PNW- Kallai, Waves Crashing, Fotoform and Mercury’s Antennae are highlight’s. The Bay Area offered some amazing gems from Halou, Vague Lanes and my newest favorite Pink Breath of Heaven- who blew me away at The Dreamgaze Shoegaze/Dreampop festival in Portland.

So fortunate to have worked with most of the bands on the list through shows in partnership with my show Six Beats Under and XRAY FM.

The Top 10 Albums

Let the Lonely Hearts Sing by Strange Boutique (Circle Music)
Colors Make a Sound by Pink Breath of Heaven (Little Cloud Records)
We are Forever by Kallai (Little Cloud Records)
Effection by Waves Crashing (Neon Sigh)
Grief is a Garden by Fotoform (self release)
Divergence and Declaration by Vague Lanes (self release)
Among the Black Trees by Mercury’s Antennae (Sett records)
Boredom & Romance by Dysphoria (No Movement records)
Halou by The Big Whole (self-release)

OK, what about favorite singles?

“A tie between Twelve Chimes by Strange Boutique and Colors Make a Sound by Pink Breath of Heaven”.

Hear them all…

So many of our DJs and show hosts have produced their favorite lists as part of their regular XRAY shows, find them all here and keep checking back as more DJs are dropping their favorites lists in the first week of the year.

Hi XRAY listeners, members, fans and family. I wanted to send a little greeting at the end of the year to show my gratitude and appreciation for this community as we wrap up 2025 (please can it be over yet!?)

While this year has been a whirlwind in media, from the FCC wanting to “delete” things in March, wading into the late night wars in September (and as some are pointing out, generally pushing the bounds of their authority) to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announcing in August they would be shutting down after 58 years, it has not been an easy year to be in media or broadcasting.

Despite all of these challenges, XRAY has managed to put another successful year in the books. We passed our goal on two fund drives, held our first ever “mini drive” in the summer (and gave away Pickathon tickets to some lucky givers), and just last night we were able to set a stretch goal on our Give! Guide Campaign (we are only $1100 away as I write this!).

We also held a kick-ass party with RLLRBLL and Descending Pharaohs, had a great time at the Mississippi Street Fair, held an Ant-Fascist 4th of July benefit show and continued the tradition with our 8th Annual Amplify Women Teach-In. On top of all that, we’re still making the best radio in the world (ok, maybe I’m biased)… but you can hear over 100 hours of original programming every week made by your friends, neighbors and the taste-makers of Portland.

And, there will be plenty to look forward to with XRAY in 2026. We’ll finally be expanding our reach on the coast (we got the funding!). 2026 will also see some serious upgrades to what it means to be an XRAY member, including a big announcement we’ll be making soon. Plus you’ll find XRAY at more places and events, starting with the Portland Record Show on January 24th (see you there)!

So, to wrap up the year I want to say thank you. Thank you to all the people that volunteer their time on the air and behind the scenes (if you are still looking for a New Year’s resolution, maybe join us). 

And a huge THANK YOU to all the people that became members, supported a peer to peer page, made a donation through the Give! Guide, gave money to the station at an event, mailed us a check, sponsored us through their business or made any other contribution to the station. 

It’s your support that keeps us independent, has kept us stable through all the uncertainty and is helping us take some serious leaps forward as a station in 2026. I couldn’t be more grateful for your support or proud of what our community has been able to accomplish this year. So Happy New Year and…

Radio is Yours!

This weekend we happen upon the 32nd iteration of the Customer Appreciation Barbecue at Music Millennium, a tradition that only Covid could prevent from being the 32nd consecutive barbecue. That’s right, they had to take a year off too. The outdoor event features food (obviously), music, and the Wacky Wheel of Wonder. Little did I know when I asked owner Terry Currier during a 2024 radio interview about said Wacky Wheel of Wonder that the answer would take me all the way back to 1993, involve Garth Brooks (and arcane knowledge about CD distribution policy), and ultimately lead us to the genesis of Record Store Day. I guess that’s what happens when you spin the wheel…

“So, how long has the Wacky Wheel of Wonder been around?”, I asked (stupidly).

“Since we first did the barbecue in 1993, and the barbecue came about because I did a protest barbecue tour up and down the coast on I-5,” said Currier.

That’s right, the first barbecue was part of a protest-barbecue movement started by Terry.

You see we might be taking the independent record shop as we know it today a bit for granted. In those days the big record labels had more influence on what sellers could carry in their stores and if your shop happened to also be a re-seller of music, like Music Millennium and many other independent shops, your shop was facing pressure to end the resell portion of your business because the labels don’t make any money on the re-sale of CDs.

As Terry explains it, “the record industry had come up with a policy that stated if you sold used CDs in your store, they weren’t gonna give you any advertising or marketing money. Then [Garth] Brooks came down and said, we’re not going to let stores that sell used CDs carry my record…I had been fighting this thing with the industry for about six months. I thought that record stores should be able to do whatever they wanted in their own stores, and Garth gave me that opportunity to get that to the public.”

At this point, it’s probably helpful to hop in the time machine and remember it’s 1993 and Garth Brooks is a huge deal. The album they were threatening to keep from the shop was Brooks’ 5th full-length record titled ‘In Pieces’. It would debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 and go on to earn Diamond Certification by the RIAA (that’s Gold Certification 20 times over); obviously it was going to be one of the biggest releases of the year.

Undeterred, Terry pulled anything by Garth Brooks from his shelves, sent out press releases, and took out an ad in the Willamette Week paper telling customers to come down to the shop with their Garth Brooks posters, albums and VHS tapes. At that first cookout meat was not on the menu – “I’d eat a VHS tape on a hoagie bun with barbecue sauce…” said Currier.

The cookout didn’t end there as Terry decided to take the protest on tour from Bellingham, Washington all the way to San Diego, California coordinating with independent record store owners along the way. Terry found that many of these shop owners (and their customers) felt the same way he did. Public pressure mounted and eventually the record labels and Garth Brooks pulled back the pressure on shops reselling used CDs.

“We actually overturned the rules that the industry had on used CDs.” You still won’t find any Garth Brooks on the shelves at Music Millennium though.

David beat Goliath. An independent reseller from Portland, Oregon (of all places) got the industry giants to back down.

Now we have to hop back in the time machine and return to 2025 to realize the true impact of that protest however. The collateral “damage” to the industry has become a sort of inverse butterfly effect that either predicted or helped usher in (or both) the return of vinyl LPs to the marketplace, ultimately replacing CDs as the predominant form of new physical media.

Currier continued to tell me, “the following year I came up with a proposal to put a group of [record store] owners together to share ideas from noncompetitive cities across the country and out of that two other coalitions started…the three coalitions in 2008 introduced Record Store Day [RSD], which became kind of the ground floor for the renaissance of vinyl.”

With artists as big as Taylor Swift and Post Malone getting in on the action these days, it’s not exactly the ground floor of vinyl anymore, but it is an important way for independent stores like Music Millennium to connect with audiences and provide something special. For collectors maybe it’s just another excuse to get out into the stacks at our favorite local shops. For me, I just like to be reminded that sometimes the little guy can win if they stand up for what they believe in.

So if you’re feeling like the giants of the world are pushing us around too much these days, you can take a moment this weekend to celebrate a small victory that made a big difference. While you’re there, you can listen to some great local live music, enjoy some food, and maybe even spin the Wacky Wheel of Wonder. I hear they’ve started serving actual food at the barbecue these days.

As Terry Currier puts it, “Our first customer appreciation barbecue was really a celebration of that whole barbecue tour.”

Music Millennium’s 32nd Annual Customer Appreciation BBQ happens this Saturday, August 9th from 11am until 6pm in their parking lot on Burnside.
https://musicmillennium.com/CustomPage/14989

above, Nate Carson in his home studio

thank you to Jimb Fisher for editing this audio

Chase Spross: [00:00:00] We’re talking with people who helped start the station and have been around for a long time. And I think trying to understand what somebody’s show is about is always kind of a difficult thing, and I have you here. So why don’t you go ahead and tell me, like, what Heavy Metal Sewing Circle is all about and kind of what is the show?

Nate Carson: [00:00:15] Sure. Well, I’ve been a Heavy Metal fan for a long time, but I’m also interested in all different kinds of music. So I try to have a very broad net of what I include under the banner of Heavy Metal, and I think a lot of people who are not aficionados of the genre might be surprised at some of the music that they would hear on the show. I tend to do a chronological episodes that start back in the nineteen sixties and head to the present. And something else that I do is I don’t play the hits. To me, commercial FM radio has beaten, you know, a couple hundred songs to death forever that we never need to hear again. Like, there’s no reason for me to play Barracuda by Heart or Stairway to Heaven or, you know, Paranoid by Black Sabbath or Breaking the Law by Judas Priest because, like, you can just close your eyes and play those songs in your head because we’ve heard them so many times. And all of these artists have fifteen, twenty, twenty five albums worth of material. So I feel like my show is a chance to hear everything else. And on top of that, there are countless artists that weren’t blessed with the right management or the right record deal and didn’t become part of the Clear Channel canon. And so I like to play from them as well.

Nate Carson: [00:01:34] I call it Heavy Metal Sewing Circle because I want it to feel approachable. I don’t want people who have maybe gotten it in their mind that heavy metal is just screaming and shredding guitar leads and double bass and scary satanic stuff to maybe ease into the genre by listening to my show and hearing, you know, some of the hard rock from the sixties and seventies and how that turned into heavy metal. So I guess probably the one thing that I require of a song is the intent to be heavy. And there are sometimes blues songs from the forties that to me, the intention was to do something really dark and heavy, and that makes it almost heavy metal to me. Not in the pure sense, but, you know, just the vibe. And I try to make it an inclusive show. I mean, there are definitely women’s history month episodes and black history month episodes and things like that where I really do my homework and try to bring in the diversity because, yes, heavy metal was largely a white man’s game, but not entirely. And, you know, out of thousands and thousands of artists, there are some really interesting gems that, you know, I wanna play for people. And so I try to keep, you know, a realistic amount of diversity on the program considering the genre.

Chase Spross: [00:02:59] Yeah. I mean, to kinda highlight something you did in the past with XRAY, you helped produce a a segment for Amplify Women on the band Fanny, and that might be a perfect example because they’re an all women rock and roll band. I believe they got labeled as like a novelty act a lot back in the day, but that just kind of is really brushing aside what they were bringing to the table and like what their intentions were.

Nate Carson: [00:03:22] Absolutely. And the cool part was that I was able to talk to three of those women and, you know, have their voices on the show. And I play their music all the time.

Chase Spross: [00:03:32] So one of the things I really think is interesting about your show that I appreciate and have kind of used to help even give advice for other people doing radio programs is kind of like poking at the intention behind radio or how people are already consuming it or interacting with it. You’re trying to kind of poke at something different than oh, hearing the same playlist that you would kind of expect to hear out of these artists. Where did that come from? Like, have you done radio before XRAY?

Nate Carson: [00:04:00] I mean, I had very little radio experience before that. I maybe sat in on college radio episodes a few times over my life, and I’ve definitely been in bands that performed on the radio. But otherwise, this was really new to me, and it was especially when we were in the old studio in Southeast Portland, and it was just me by myself with a microphone facing a wall. I kinda had to find my voice and get comfortable with that, especially because I’m a drummer. Yeah. So I’m not usually the guy on the mic in front of the stage. And I think I’ve become a much better public speaker, thanks to having a show on XRAY. So that’s been really great. I guess for me, I’m the kind of person that turns on the radio, and I’m, like, immediately bored, and I’m constantly, like, switching to another channel. And when you’re talking about hard rock or classic rock, it’s like they’re playing one Tom Petty song on the classic rock station, and you switch to the other hard rock station, and it’s a different Tom Petty song at the same time. And I don’t think it’s an accident. You know?

Nate Carson: [00:05:04] It’s very much these computer controlled playlists. And the funny thing is if I do play a more recognizable tune, I often get more engagement from listeners. People like things that they’re familiar with. And it’s not that I’m trying to torture anyone or just educate people, but to me, it’s just not interesting to use up this valuable time on the air to play something that you can hear somewhere else. To me, I feel like the savvy XRAY listener tunes in so that an expert aka a nerd, you know, took the time to curate a really special playlist and turn people on to music. And that’s what I want more than anything is for people to hear something that they haven’t heard before or as even if that’s a song from a popular artist. Like, everybody knows the five Scorpion songs that get played every day on the other stations. But there’s, like, a hundred other cool Scorpion songs and whole eras that people don’t know about. And so to me, I wanna share that, and it also keeps me engaged as a music listener doing my homework and finding cool stuff to share every week. I think I buy a lot more records because I have a radio show, and I do a lot more research because I have a radio show. So it enriches my personal enjoyment of music to do this.

Chase Spross: [00:06:30] Having done this for ten years now, has your relationship to the material that you’re playing changed at all? Or like, what kind of the original idea that you brought to the show, has that expanded or changed at all?

Nate Carson: [00:06:42] Well, it used to be much more of a free for all when I started. Yeah. And I think I really zeroed in a couple years into the show into doing mostly chronological episodes. And the reason for that is because the recording technology and the mastering techniques used for hard rock changed so much from the sixties to the seventies to the eighties to the nineties. And I feel like if I play a Vanilla Fudge song from 1968 back to back with some newer Metallica song, The Vanilla Fudge, even though to me, like, I can interpret that as heaviness, like, the average listener hears modern heavy production as louder and heavier. But I really do like the show to flow from one song to the next as nicely as is reasonable, But I also have to produce a couple hours of radio every week, so I don’t overthink it. Yeah. I think I have a lot of listeners that really get into this sorta infotainment aspect of my show. I don’t like to talk for a long time in my talking breaks, but I like to give enough info to pique your interest and just say, here’s something that I found interesting about this song. Here’s something I just learned myself, Or here’s something that I’ve known for a while that maybe you don’t know about. Because more than anything, I want somebody to say, oh, that’s interesting to me. I’m gonna, on my own time, explore that further. Or I’m gonna go buy that record because it’s awesome, and I need to have that in my collection. I think also I mean, I grew up obviously listening to radio. I lived Yeah. On a goat farm in the country, and, you know, getting a clear signal was not always a sure thing.

Chase Spross: [00:08:25] Yeah.

Nate Carson: [00:08:25] But there was times at night where I remember hearing on the classic rock station from Eugene at midnight one night, they played the song Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, which is not normally like a top 40 type hit, not something you’re gonna hear at drive time. But I went and bought that record the next day, and I brought it home. And my mom said, oh, far out. I used to have that. I think that what a lot of people don’t realize these days is the scarcity that, like, radio sort of satiated for us. Like, if you heard a song, you like you’re like, oh, turn it up. It’s, you know, it’s gonna be over in three minutes.

Chase Spross: [00:09:04] Yeah.

Nate Carson: [00:09:04] Or or you’re taping the radio for hours hoping to get a dub of a certain song that you liked. And I think that’s something I always really liked about radio. And unfortunately, it just turned into this commercially, turned into this very cookie cookie cutter phenomenon where you know every day which songs you’re gonna hear. And like, I just wanna fight against that.

Chase Spross: [00:09:28] Yeah. I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about, you know, we’re I’m asked I’ve asked you here today because this is the tenth anniversary of XRAY. And I was not around at the launch, but I’ve been around for a while. And it’s had me thinking a lot about kind of how the station got started, and I’m really curious and interested in talking with people that were around with the launch. Like, how did you first get involved with XRAY? Like, how did this start for you?

Nate Carson: [00:09:52] Well, I was kind of chased by XRAY for probably half a year. Yeah. And at the time well, and at all times, really. I’m really busy. Like, I have a a booking agency. That’s my day job. I was still writing for the weeklies then and for a lot of magazines. I tour in my own band. I write horror and science fiction stories. I travel, you know, so I’m a busy person. And at the time when I was first asked, I just thought that’s like one more thing to do. It’s a volunteer gig, and I can’t make time for it. But Mariam, who was savvy enough to keep asking, hit me in like mid December of twenty thirteen when I had not a lot on my plate because it was the holidays. And all of a sudden, was like, yeah, I guess I could consider that. And so by January, I was in training and making beta episodes in 2014. And then by the time we came online, I was starting to catch my stride and just having fun with it, and I’ve never quit.

Chase Spross: [00:10:54] Your show, like you said, kinda was really on before XRAY was on the air on ninety one point one FM. So those first kind of shows were streaming on the Internet. I went back and looked. Your first show was, I think, February of  2014. So before we went on the air. Yep. What do you remember about those early days? What was it like to be a part of it?

Nate Carson: [00:11:14] I mean, I was DJ’ing in clubs a lot at that time when I started the show. So I definitely had my chops as at mixing records. Talking was a little bit of a different thing, but I got in the swing of that quickly. But I don’t know. It was fun. Circa Rad was right before me, and they always loved that I would open all the early episodes. I would always start with a Beatles song or a Yoko Ono song. Okay. And they loved that. And after a while, I felt like I had sort of exhausted that because, you know, there’s only so many of those songs, and I’d rather keep it special. So that changed, and eventually, I got into the more chronological format. But for a long time, it was just kind of like before my preparation for the radio was go pull a crate of records kind of not at totally random, but just like intuition, like looking at my stacks. I’d say, oh, here’s this will be fun. They’ll play something off that. I would never pre plan the entire episode. I would just put together a crate, show up at the station fifteen minutes beforehand, get everything set up, put my needles on, and then just figure out what I was gonna play. And back then, I was having to type in my playlists, like, as I was choosing records and DJing, and it was kind of a lot. But, you know, you get in the swing of it.

Chase Spross: [00:12:33] Is there anything you wanna tell people about kind of where to find more about what you do and kind of engage with you outside of the radio show in some way?

Nate Carson: [00:12:41] Sure. I mean, I can’t ever talk about it on my own show Yeah. Because I can’t promote myself there. And on top of that, I am a booking agent, and I work with 40 of my favorite bands, and they are mostly in the kinda heavy genre. So there are so many of my favorite bands like Yob from Eugene, for instance. Like, I’ve never in ten years been able to play a Yob song on the show, which is sometimes heartbreaking because to me, they’re one of the best bands in the world. But, you know, I just I’m not here to abuse my privilege of the airwaves, and so I don’t do that. But I do go on other people’s shows and talk about them sometimes. And sometimes if I’m gonna be out of town and someone’s covering for me, they’ll play some of that stuff, which is cool. But so my booking agency is called Nanotear, which is a billionth of a teardrop. And that’s what I cry when things go wrong, which is, you know, often, but a billionth of a tear is not so large. Nanotear.com shows the whole booking roster of bands that I work with. Nanotear is also my handle on Instagram and Twitter and things like that. So if you look up Nanotear, you’re either gonna find me or some eye drops company that came along called Nanotears later. But I don’t make eye drops, they don’t book bands, so it’s not a big deal. Yeah. And then I also have an Amazon author page for the horror and science fiction and weird stuff that I write. So Nathan Carson is my full name, and that would be something you could look up.

Chase Spross: [00:14:10] Well, thanks thanks again. Thank you for volunteering for the station, doing this help people explore more about, you know, heavy metal and and the stuff that you’ve been playing on your radio show for the last ten years. And, you know, it’s it is a service because you can’t you can’t go out there and promote yourself. It’s a thing that you’re doing because you really believe in it. And I just really appreciate you taking the time to to do that with XRAY over the last ten years and to sit down with me to talk about it.

Nate Carson: [00:14:35] My pleasure. I mean, it’s been great to volunteer in Portland and getting to do something that I care about. It’s not like I’m volunteering to dig ditches or something. You know? Like, I’m not building churches. I’m just encouraging people to burn them down. But in general, I would say if you don’t know much about heavy metal or you somehow have an aversion to it from some past experience, like, please check out the show because you might hear something that never occurred to you before to be counted under that umbrella.
Chase Spross: [00:15:08] Well, that’s a great place to leave it. I’ll let you have that last word. That’s Nate Carson, host of the Heavy Metal Sewing Circle, which airs every Wednesday from ten to 11PM on XRAY FM. You’ll also find those archives on xray.fm. Just go to the slash shows and you’ll you’ll see them on Wednesday and explore the the last ten years of of curated playlists from from Nate. Thank you.

Dear XRAY Supporter,

2024 was a big year for XRAY! Thank you for giving to XRAY and supporting our community.
The majority of XRAY’s budget comes from individual donors and our station would not exist without you.

Undoubtedly, the most important event for XRAY in 2024 was our capital campaign to buy the license for 107.1FM (our primary broadcast signal). The 107.1 campaign had the single largest fundraising goal ever for XRAY and we were bowled over by the widespread support our appeal received. We met–and exceeded–our goal: thank you! As I write this letter, we are proceeding through the FCC-governed license transfer process and we hope to complete this acquisition in 2025.

Many other exciting activities filled XRAY’s calendar in 2024. Briefly, a few highlights:

• XRAY turned 10!…and had a birthday party at Polaris Hall to share the celebration with all of you, the Minus 5, and Abronia.

• Among other programming highlights, we continued to diversify our programming by bringing on 12 new shows from new and returning XRAY hosts, covering everything from 80s electro pop and house mixes, to local sports stories, to hard hitting reviews on the latest theatrical releases. We continued to host special programs, such as our 7th annual Amplify Women day- long broadcast teach-in.

• In advance of Portland’s 2024 local elections, XRAY partnered with the North Star Civic Foundation and Portland is Possible to produce more than 60 in-depth candidate profiles and a sold-out candidate showcase. In these efforts (and many others), we worked to platform candidates who might otherwise have slipped through the cracks–and to help our audience sort through a record number of local choices.

• And, we had a lot of fun! A live broadcast from the Ladds 500 in April, a laser light show at our Polaris Hall birthday party, a record fair at Wayfinder Beer, a film series with the Tomorrow Theater, a dance party at Holocene, a live simulcast of a Stephen Malkmus show at Turn!Turn!Turn!, a pair of Peter Buck in-studio appearances on Head East, and much more!

XRAY connected with our community all year long – and we’re already excited about more partnerships & more events in 2025!

Speaking of which…2025 has some XRAY surprises in store for you! Looking forward, we’re excited to make some moves in Portland and beyond to grow our community and better serve our listeners. As always, thank you for sharing this journey with us!

Thank you,

Lee Shaker

This set of albums honestly has something for everyone, and really runs the gamut from small indie artists releasing their debut album to one of the biggest bands of decades past making a surprise comeback. You’ll see some names you know, and probably some you don’t, but we hope you discover something worth loving in this list — we certainly did.

And while we’re talking albums here, we made a little sampling of some of the best songs off those albums by looking to what DJs were playing over and over again. You can scroll through this blog post to see every album with a corresponding track, or check out the YouTube playlist to get a sampling of tracks from them all!

A major thank you has to go out to XRAY Music Librarian Gary Dickerson, who’s been handling all of the music submissions coming into the station, as a volunteer, for a few years now and, by extension, compiling this list. It’s thanks to Gary that XRAY DJs receive a weekly enviable list of everything being released that week: including what artists you might like if you like someone else. If you’d like to submit your new music to that list, please see the station’s music submission guidelines and instructions. And, if you need a pick-me-up, check out Gary’s tongue-in-cheek show The Dickenbock Report Sundays at Noon.

Happy listening!

01 Kim Deal – “Nobody Loves You More” (4AD)

02 Mary Timony – “Untame The Tiger” (Merge)

03 The Cure – “Songs Of A Lost World” (Fiction/Polydor)

04 Father John Misty – “Mahashmashana” (Sub Pop)

05 Federale – “Reverb & Seduction” (Jealous Butcher)

06 Broadcast – “Spell Blanket (Collected Demos 2006-2009)” (Warp)

07 The Jesus & Mary Chain – “Glasgow Eyes” (Fuzz Club)

08 Khruangbin – “A La Sala” (Dead Oceans)

09 X – “Smoke & Fiction” (Fat Possum)

10 Sun Atoms – “Everything Forever” (Little Cloud)

11 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Wild God” (Sacred Bones)

12 Chastity Belt – “Live Laugh Love” (Suicide Squeeze)

13 La Luz – “News Of The Universe” (Sub Pop)

14 Waxahatchee – “Tigers Blood” (Anti-)

15 Maita – “Want” (Fluff & Gravy)

16 The Decemberists – “As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again” (Yabb)

17 Common & Pete Rock – “The Auditorium, Vol. 1” (Loma Vista/Concord)

18 The Dandy Warhols – “Rockmaker” (Sunset Blvd.)

19 The Prids – “I Only Care About You & Me” (This-A-Way)

20 Reyna Tropical – “Malegría” (Psychic Hotline)

21 Blue Darling – “Folded Hands EP” (Self-Released)

22 Strfkr – “Parallel Realms” (Polyvinyl)

23 Faye Webster – “Underdressed At The Symphony” (Secretly Canadian)

24 Hinds – “Viva Hinds” (Lucky Number)

25 Shannon & The Clams – “The Moon Is In The Wrong Place” (Easy Eye Sound/Concord)

26 Camera Obscura – “Look To The East, Look To The West” (Merge)

27 Memorials – “Memorial Waterslides” (Fire)

28 Bevis Frond – “Focus On Nature” (Fire) (# 1)

29 Robyn Hitchcock – “1967: Vacations In The Past” (Tiny Ghost)

30 The Softies – “The Bed I Made” (Father/Daughter)