What’s your name and your DJ name?
The Peachpit was the name of my original show [when KMRD first went on the air] and people started calling me that, so I’ve sort of adopted it—it’s kind of a given name.
What’s the name of your show, and when is it on?
Low Hanging Fruit, Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. Low Hanging Fruit, while it sounds negative to some people, to me it’s a shout-out to letting go of resistance, consciously. I guess I’m the kind of person who can put too much pressure on my form of my expression, and Low Hanging Fruit means, to me, that I can accept where I am in the present moment and what I want to hear in the present moment, without morphing it into something that I deem better. I’m a mama and it’s very hard for me to carve out time for myself, and so I have to practice capturing the space I’m in in a short amount of time, and, as it turns out, the fruit at the bottom of the tree is just as sweet.
Please describe your show. What’s its format?
I guess the only format is what I consider the golden thread that runs through a song, meaning that I want my songs to connect to one another, so it’s important that I really tune in to the vibe that a song ends with, so that as we go into the next song, it’s easy on the senses.
I try to stick with the feeling of a wave. If I’m playing a chill wave show, I’m not trying to completely chill you out because I enjoy my music best when the songs have a rise and a fall, or you could say an ebb and a flow. No genre’s off the table but you’re likely not to hear any doom metal unless it’s really, really good.
What drew you to participate in KMRD?
I was in the process of attempting to pull myself out of a very deep grieving period, and having an outlet that afforded me some autonomy and gave me something to do with my huge music collection was really appealing. So I started talking to Stella about how I could help get the station on air, and her vision for a community resource created an excitement in me that branched beyond my selfish desires to have a show.
Music is everything to me—I couldn’t do this life without it—and being a part of such a cool community that values music so deeply and values expression so deeply, I just knew that this would be a project that would be so good for the people of Madrid, and that what we were putting out in the airwaves would be such an alternative to the crap we hear when we turn on mainstream radio. I see the station as a gift to myself, a gift to the community and a gift to anyone in the world listening.
What’s the appeal of doing a radio show? How does it fit into the rest of your life (job, creative passion, family)?
It’s time for me. Regardless of what’s happening, this one hour a week is mine. But I also know that I’m creating something that helps my loved ones know me better and helps any random person listening get clearer on what they like and what they don’t. And I guess I’d also hope that the show that I put together scratches someone’s itch that they didn’t know they had.
I’ve told several people so I guess I’ll tell you: Having a radio show saved my life, and it’s continued to save my life, over and over again. It’s somehow become a kind of a journal entry. It’s given me a new appreciation for all those mixtape skills I acquired in high school. The station is deeply important to me and even when I couldn’t have a show, I’ve always strived to support KMRD because I know that really, I could never give more to the station than the station’s given to me.
What difference has being a DJ made in your life?
It gives me a space to practice dropping the pretense, facing myself and doing it with a bit of an audience. It also affords me the ability to connect with people without poking my social anxiety.
And, on a much lighter note, it’s really fun! It’s opened up a world of new relationships for me over the years and now KMRD feels like it’s etched into me—and I mean the whole of KMRD, the DJs and the projects and the music. It’s something I’m proud to be a part of.
What are your hopes for the station? What are your hopes for your show?
My hopes for the station are that the community continues to encourage and support KMRD. We can continue to value the resource it is to the people who are a part of it and anyone who listens to it.
I hope it’s around for the rest of my life, and, to see that to fruition, it takes a lot of work and a lot of support from a lot of people. I hope we all continue to show up with the same fervor for the station, that we have since day one. And honestly, I hope that more people realize that this little gem has big things to offer to the world. Long live KMRD and fly, little baby bird, fly!
And my show? I just wanna keep rockin and rollin all the livelong day.