Sacred Circle TEMENOS is celebrating 1 year on the air: Host Diablo reflects on the accomplishment!
KBOO, as a community experiment is always evolving! New volunteers and new shows join in the mix of decades old programs and years of creativity! Every attempt at community building is highly celebrated and in July, we mark the 1 year anniversary of Sacred Circle TEMENOS a late night music program that airs on alternating Thursday nights at Midnight (technically Friday mornings) hosted by Diablo -Dirty Diablo (aka Tim Nakayama).
I sat down with Tim and asked him to reflect on 1 year of Sacred Circle TEMENOS, a show he describes as a "Live mix tape"!
Listen to our conversation HERE or read the edited transcript of our discussion bellow.
Delphine: It's time to celebrate! It's been 1 year! Talk about how it feels! How did you come up with the idea for the show and how does it feel to then carry it through a whole year?
Tim: Yeah, one loop around the sun! A year ago, I got an email from Erin (KBOO's Program Director) saying that they were going to open a late night show up and I should do it. So I thought what am I going to do? I love deep house music, so I thought maybe I'll do a late night deep house music show. But I love all kinds of music and all kinds of things and I wanted to be more diverse then that. And when I was thinking about names, first I though I was going to call it the Dirty Diablo Variety Hour or something really cheesy like that. But then I ended up calling it this other name The Sacred Circle TEMENOS: A sacred space where we can be ourselves without fear and the soul can be healed. (Listen to the AUDIO of this interview for the full story about the meaning of TEMENOS)
I wanted to open up the mics to the community and have other artists and DJs and record collectors and musicians have an opportunity to come in. But also, I used to make mix tapes back in the day, so the show is like a live mix tape on a theme. So I have done a lot of different themes. It's so much fun! I am thrilled to be able to be part of this and every other week to come up with something and come down here and play music for the community, do interviews too. It's so much fun!
Delphine: Talk about the role of music in your life, but also why you want to share music with others, where does that come from?
Tim: When I was a kid, I stole my mom and dad's Motown 45s. I had a little FisherPrice turn table. And then in High School I always just loved listening to music. In fact, I used to listen to KBOO back in those days too and I would get all the early Hip Hop before everybody knew about them! I would go buy Dance music and I wanted to share it because it is great music! I wanted someone else to be able to experience the passion I had and see if they'd like it or not! So I would go buy 12' singles and record them onto tapes and then take the tapes to parties and put different tapes at different times at different parties and see how people reacted to that. I just want to bring joy and laughter and exuberance and just get down and booggy to some good music! I would also always add some weird samples in! Always throw some weird little things in between on the tape!
It's funny, my daughter was listening to a mix tape I made for my mom. My Mom passed away recently so we were cleaning her house and she had all these mix tapes that I had made her some 20, 30 years old. And my daughter was listening to them and she said "Dad, it's like you doing a radio show 20 years ago!"
Delphine: This is such an awesome little vignette, about the continuity of the role of music in your life. Talk about the recurring theme of music in your life!
Tim: It's been part of my whole life, since I was a little kid. Like I said I would take my Mom's 45s and when I was really young in grade school I signed up for the Columbia House Record Club. I would get all these records from them! I would also go to the record stores. I was just so passionate about music! I always have music going, 24/7 in my life!
Delphine: If there was a theme song for your life, what would that be? If you could walk into a room and every time there is the same song playing, what would that song be?
Tim: ... There is a song called "What you see is what you get!" and I love that track. It talks about how some people are fake, some people are plastic and some people are made of wood, but I'm for real babe...
Delphine: Yep, what you see is what you get! So, talk a little bit about the influence of Burning Man, because you said that you have been doing some DJing at Burning Man. So talk about the role of Burning Man in fostering creativity!
Tim: It's a huge topic to talk about Burning Man and creativity! It's this blank canvas that will let you do whatever. It's an interesting thing to think about my musical progression over there over the years. I remember my first or second Burn, I brought 800 CDs of my own CDs and I talked to our camp about getting a 50 disc or 100 disc charger. My idea was for everyone to put in 10 discs or something like that and put it on shuffle and see what comes out! It's pretty random, more random that what people wanted it to be.
Delphine: How did you take the steps to come to KBOO after having had that experience DJing at Burning Man?
Tim: Every year I was just jonesing to get back out there, I couldn't wait to be on air again! I had more music I wanted to share and wanted to know what people would think. I couldn't wait to have an other opportunity to play music, so I started to think about KBOO. I used to listen to KBOO back in the 80s and I had fallen off so I tuned in and I decided to go see and get connected with KBOO. And there are DJs at Burning Man that are also DJs at KBOO. So I came down to the station and my daughter came with me and we started volunteering at the Book and Records Sale and then we did a pledge drive. My daughter helped out with the phones.
I started taking all the classes, Audio Production and the News classes and Digital Editing. I even took the Library class and Field Recording and the Live Music Mixology class and my daughter was taking all of these classes with me. She said she wanted to join the youth collective so she did and she had already taken all of these classes that they were learning.
At the volunteer orientation, they had said that some people volunteer ten years without ever getting on air. After hearing that I completely shifted my thinking. I was thinking I wanted to get on air when I got down here like a lot of people do when they volunteer at KBOO. So I shifted my priorities and decided to help where KBOO needed and subbed every once in a while.
Then I started helping out with the Roots of Rock'n Roll. Steve Breaker who has some health issues and could no longer put the 45s on the turn tables needed someone to help him. I started doing that regularly and then Erin put the word out for that open slot! (Listen to the Audio to hear more about Tim and Steve Breaker's collaboration on The Roots of Rock'n Roll)
Delphine: That service component seem to be an essential part of your personality.
Tim: I have worked in the mental health field for 27 years. My friends often say that I missed my calling, I should have gone into radio. I think the mental health field is my calling and this is just something that keeps my sanity! It let's me be creative and express myself and share and do all the other things I do at KBOO beside the shows!
Delphine: Talk about the role of KBOO in the community! Lots of folks listen but not everybody understands that you can volunteer, you can get free training, that there are also other opportunities for growth, like you became a trainer, etc...
Tim: Yes, they asked me to become a trainer for Intro to Audio Production, so I shadowed you in your class and that was great! I have also volunteered in the News Department. One of the thing that was great was learning the skills of how to do interviews, and editing and such. Once, I wanted to take part in this project for the Third Coast Short Radio Documentary Challenge. I had to do a 3 minute documentary and I got my Aunt in her and I started interviewing her about Japanese Internment. When I was doing the editing, Kathleen Stevenson (KBOO's Morning Public Affairs Director) told me about a book she had received about the Japanese Internment Camps and asked me if I would interview the author and I thought that would be cool, so I interviewed him! So I am not just doing music, but also training and interviewing!
KBOO is an incredible resource for the community for free! This is about our community of Portland and we reach out all over the place! We do such great work and we provide this service to the community, we train people on how to do these things and be part of this incredible group of people! KBOO is so open and welcoming for everyone! I call it "my island of misfit toys"! Everybody here is so different and so unique! We accept anyone and everyone and we want you to come and be part of KBOO and help out! Be a part of the community and bring change!
KBOO is amazing and I love the diversity! It's 160 hours of programing, so it's all over the map!
Delphine: Absolutely! The saying is "if you listen to KBOO and at one point there is not something you hate, we are not doing our job!" because we are so dedicated to bringing a huge diversity of programming so of course, at one point, there is going to be something you dislike!
Let's talk about your daughter and the influence she has on your life! She was your fist guest on Sacred Circle TEMENOS. Talk about why that was and the relationship you guys have! You do a lot together!
Tim: She had been part of the earlier training I took at KBOO and she just loved it! She is very social and she wanted to help out answer phones and do this and that! She had been doing a little bit of DJing at a couple of parties I was at. She asked to play a couple of songs and picked out music, looked through different tracks. I thought that was really cool. She had made a couple of mixtapes for her friends too and she really likes music like her dad!
So when it came to my show, I told her I am going to have guests on my show and I would like you to be my first guest! She is the first person I thought of that I would like to have, my daughter! And it was summer time, so there was no school and she could come down for an hour. She was really jazzed because we had gone to yard sales and she had some pocket money and bought a few records for herself. She bought Eye of the Tiger ...
Delphine: So how old is she?
Tim: She is now 12, but when we started out here she was 9 and so she was 11 years old when she was a guest on my show!
She is the light of my life! She brings joy to me and it was so fun to have her on! She said: "I'm gonna pay some real vinyl dad!"
Delphine: She was your first guest and you have had many more since! Talk about how you choose your guests! How do you connect to people and ask them to come on?
Tim: I have this list of friends who like music that I want to have as guest. It was maybe 50, 60 deep when I started. I wanted my second guest to be a friend who mentored me a lot on DJing but he could not do it, so my sister was visiting and I had her as my second guest. And then a couple of times I had friends that are moving out of the country! They were on my list and were leaving town so I had them on! So that's how I got a couple other guests! And people have reached out to me. They knew me from Padapelouza, or they have a record dropping. A couple of times I did theme shows like I did a Halloween theme show. I did a theme show around Thanksgiving on gratitude but also American gluttony and greed. I did a love show for Valentine's Day... I also had a volunteer who took my Intro to Audio Production class asked me to have her and her band on. I was blown away, they were amazing! (Listen to the AUDIO to hear Tim talk about interviewing NASA for a Star Trek special!)
Delphine: What I really appreciate is the fact that you bring people in to DJ on your show! I think that this is also how I have recruited so many new volunteers at KBOO by having them on the air and getting them to get a piece of what it feels to have this power to communicate in a different way.
Tim: I think I have had 3 or 4 of my guests become volunteers at KBOO!
Delphine: HA! You're great!
So what's in store for the future? How long do you hope to be doing it and what's your vision for the show?
Tim: So I have that list! I think I have maybe crossed 10 or 15 of the people that I want to have on air so I still have 45, 50 people to invite. I run into people that I can see are music collectors at the record store or even the people who work at the record store that I add to my list!
Again, this is not my line as I have heard may other DJs say, "these mics are not my mics!" They are the community's mics and this is a community station that allows other people to share! What I was thinking when I started the show is that I have done radio before and I can allow other people who don't have to go through all the trainings to come and do it and maybe they'll get a taste and want to do it! The vision for the show was always to open the mics up to the community, allowing other people to have an opportunity to share their love and share their passion and maybe get bit by the radio bug like we have!
Delphine: Oh yes! We have! Well Tim, it is such a gift to have you at KBOO! Thank you!
Listen to the AUDIO for the full interview HERE
I sat down with Tim and asked him to reflect on 1 year of Sacred Circle TEMENOS, a show he describes as a "Live mix tape"!
Listen to our conversation HERE or read the edited transcript of our discussion bellow.
Delphine: It's time to celebrate! It's been 1 year! Talk about how it feels! How did you come up with the idea for the show and how does it feel to then carry it through a whole year?
Tim: Yeah, one loop around the sun! A year ago, I got an email from Erin (KBOO's Program Director) saying that they were going to open a late night show up and I should do it. So I thought what am I going to do? I love deep house music, so I thought maybe I'll do a late night deep house music show. But I love all kinds of music and all kinds of things and I wanted to be more diverse then that. And when I was thinking about names, first I though I was going to call it the Dirty Diablo Variety Hour or something really cheesy like that. But then I ended up calling it this other name The Sacred Circle TEMENOS: A sacred space where we can be ourselves without fear and the soul can be healed. (Listen to the AUDIO of this interview for the full story about the meaning of TEMENOS)
I wanted to open up the mics to the community and have other artists and DJs and record collectors and musicians have an opportunity to come in. But also, I used to make mix tapes back in the day, so the show is like a live mix tape on a theme. So I have done a lot of different themes. It's so much fun! I am thrilled to be able to be part of this and every other week to come up with something and come down here and play music for the community, do interviews too. It's so much fun!
Delphine: Talk about the role of music in your life, but also why you want to share music with others, where does that come from?
Tim: When I was a kid, I stole my mom and dad's Motown 45s. I had a little FisherPrice turn table. And then in High School I always just loved listening to music. In fact, I used to listen to KBOO back in those days too and I would get all the early Hip Hop before everybody knew about them! I would go buy Dance music and I wanted to share it because it is great music! I wanted someone else to be able to experience the passion I had and see if they'd like it or not! So I would go buy 12' singles and record them onto tapes and then take the tapes to parties and put different tapes at different times at different parties and see how people reacted to that. I just want to bring joy and laughter and exuberance and just get down and booggy to some good music! I would also always add some weird samples in! Always throw some weird little things in between on the tape!
It's funny, my daughter was listening to a mix tape I made for my mom. My Mom passed away recently so we were cleaning her house and she had all these mix tapes that I had made her some 20, 30 years old. And my daughter was listening to them and she said "Dad, it's like you doing a radio show 20 years ago!"
Delphine: This is such an awesome little vignette, about the continuity of the role of music in your life. Talk about the recurring theme of music in your life!
Tim: It's been part of my whole life, since I was a little kid. Like I said I would take my Mom's 45s and when I was really young in grade school I signed up for the Columbia House Record Club. I would get all these records from them! I would also go to the record stores. I was just so passionate about music! I always have music going, 24/7 in my life!
Delphine: If there was a theme song for your life, what would that be? If you could walk into a room and every time there is the same song playing, what would that song be?
Tim: ... There is a song called "What you see is what you get!" and I love that track. It talks about how some people are fake, some people are plastic and some people are made of wood, but I'm for real babe...
Delphine: Yep, what you see is what you get! So, talk a little bit about the influence of Burning Man, because you said that you have been doing some DJing at Burning Man. So talk about the role of Burning Man in fostering creativity!
Tim: It's a huge topic to talk about Burning Man and creativity! It's this blank canvas that will let you do whatever. It's an interesting thing to think about my musical progression over there over the years. I remember my first or second Burn, I brought 800 CDs of my own CDs and I talked to our camp about getting a 50 disc or 100 disc charger. My idea was for everyone to put in 10 discs or something like that and put it on shuffle and see what comes out! It's pretty random, more random that what people wanted it to be.
Delphine: How did you take the steps to come to KBOO after having had that experience DJing at Burning Man?
Tim: Every year I was just jonesing to get back out there, I couldn't wait to be on air again! I had more music I wanted to share and wanted to know what people would think. I couldn't wait to have an other opportunity to play music, so I started to think about KBOO. I used to listen to KBOO back in the 80s and I had fallen off so I tuned in and I decided to go see and get connected with KBOO. And there are DJs at Burning Man that are also DJs at KBOO. So I came down to the station and my daughter came with me and we started volunteering at the Book and Records Sale and then we did a pledge drive. My daughter helped out with the phones.
I started taking all the classes, Audio Production and the News classes and Digital Editing. I even took the Library class and Field Recording and the Live Music Mixology class and my daughter was taking all of these classes with me. She said she wanted to join the youth collective so she did and she had already taken all of these classes that they were learning.
At the volunteer orientation, they had said that some people volunteer ten years without ever getting on air. After hearing that I completely shifted my thinking. I was thinking I wanted to get on air when I got down here like a lot of people do when they volunteer at KBOO. So I shifted my priorities and decided to help where KBOO needed and subbed every once in a while.
Then I started helping out with the Roots of Rock'n Roll. Steve Breaker who has some health issues and could no longer put the 45s on the turn tables needed someone to help him. I started doing that regularly and then Erin put the word out for that open slot! (Listen to the Audio to hear more about Tim and Steve Breaker's collaboration on The Roots of Rock'n Roll)
Delphine: That service component seem to be an essential part of your personality.
Tim: I have worked in the mental health field for 27 years. My friends often say that I missed my calling, I should have gone into radio. I think the mental health field is my calling and this is just something that keeps my sanity! It let's me be creative and express myself and share and do all the other things I do at KBOO beside the shows!
Delphine: Talk about the role of KBOO in the community! Lots of folks listen but not everybody understands that you can volunteer, you can get free training, that there are also other opportunities for growth, like you became a trainer, etc...
Tim: Yes, they asked me to become a trainer for Intro to Audio Production, so I shadowed you in your class and that was great! I have also volunteered in the News Department. One of the thing that was great was learning the skills of how to do interviews, and editing and such. Once, I wanted to take part in this project for the Third Coast Short Radio Documentary Challenge. I had to do a 3 minute documentary and I got my Aunt in her and I started interviewing her about Japanese Internment. When I was doing the editing, Kathleen Stevenson (KBOO's Morning Public Affairs Director) told me about a book she had received about the Japanese Internment Camps and asked me if I would interview the author and I thought that would be cool, so I interviewed him! So I am not just doing music, but also training and interviewing!
KBOO is an incredible resource for the community for free! This is about our community of Portland and we reach out all over the place! We do such great work and we provide this service to the community, we train people on how to do these things and be part of this incredible group of people! KBOO is so open and welcoming for everyone! I call it "my island of misfit toys"! Everybody here is so different and so unique! We accept anyone and everyone and we want you to come and be part of KBOO and help out! Be a part of the community and bring change!
KBOO is amazing and I love the diversity! It's 160 hours of programing, so it's all over the map!
Delphine: Absolutely! The saying is "if you listen to KBOO and at one point there is not something you hate, we are not doing our job!" because we are so dedicated to bringing a huge diversity of programming so of course, at one point, there is going to be something you dislike!
Let's talk about your daughter and the influence she has on your life! She was your fist guest on Sacred Circle TEMENOS. Talk about why that was and the relationship you guys have! You do a lot together!
Tim: She had been part of the earlier training I took at KBOO and she just loved it! She is very social and she wanted to help out answer phones and do this and that! She had been doing a little bit of DJing at a couple of parties I was at. She asked to play a couple of songs and picked out music, looked through different tracks. I thought that was really cool. She had made a couple of mixtapes for her friends too and she really likes music like her dad!
So when it came to my show, I told her I am going to have guests on my show and I would like you to be my first guest! She is the first person I thought of that I would like to have, my daughter! And it was summer time, so there was no school and she could come down for an hour. She was really jazzed because we had gone to yard sales and she had some pocket money and bought a few records for herself. She bought Eye of the Tiger ...
Delphine: So how old is she?
Tim: She is now 12, but when we started out here she was 9 and so she was 11 years old when she was a guest on my show!
She is the light of my life! She brings joy to me and it was so fun to have her on! She said: "I'm gonna pay some real vinyl dad!"
Delphine: She was your first guest and you have had many more since! Talk about how you choose your guests! How do you connect to people and ask them to come on?
Tim: I have this list of friends who like music that I want to have as guest. It was maybe 50, 60 deep when I started. I wanted my second guest to be a friend who mentored me a lot on DJing but he could not do it, so my sister was visiting and I had her as my second guest. And then a couple of times I had friends that are moving out of the country! They were on my list and were leaving town so I had them on! So that's how I got a couple other guests! And people have reached out to me. They knew me from Padapelouza, or they have a record dropping. A couple of times I did theme shows like I did a Halloween theme show. I did a theme show around Thanksgiving on gratitude but also American gluttony and greed. I did a love show for Valentine's Day... I also had a volunteer who took my Intro to Audio Production class asked me to have her and her band on. I was blown away, they were amazing! (Listen to the AUDIO to hear Tim talk about interviewing NASA for a Star Trek special!)
Delphine: What I really appreciate is the fact that you bring people in to DJ on your show! I think that this is also how I have recruited so many new volunteers at KBOO by having them on the air and getting them to get a piece of what it feels to have this power to communicate in a different way.
Tim: I think I have had 3 or 4 of my guests become volunteers at KBOO!
Delphine: HA! You're great!
So what's in store for the future? How long do you hope to be doing it and what's your vision for the show?
Tim: So I have that list! I think I have maybe crossed 10 or 15 of the people that I want to have on air so I still have 45, 50 people to invite. I run into people that I can see are music collectors at the record store or even the people who work at the record store that I add to my list!
Again, this is not my line as I have heard may other DJs say, "these mics are not my mics!" They are the community's mics and this is a community station that allows other people to share! What I was thinking when I started the show is that I have done radio before and I can allow other people who don't have to go through all the trainings to come and do it and maybe they'll get a taste and want to do it! The vision for the show was always to open the mics up to the community, allowing other people to have an opportunity to share their love and share their passion and maybe get bit by the radio bug like we have!
Delphine: Oh yes! We have! Well Tim, it is such a gift to have you at KBOO! Thank you!
Listen to the AUDIO for the full interview HERE