Music
Alan Ball brings you Blues from the Roadhouse Tuesdays at noon with some great capital B Blues music and featured artists. These programs gnaw at the roots of American music as an integral part of our cultural history. Starting as impromptu work and rhythm chants on plantations, this genre soon spread to many more popular styles. Alan is a recent transplant to Placitas, moving from Santa Fe. He has lived in New Mexico for 35 years, was a Platte River youngster in the Midwest and escaped to the Rocky Mountains as soon as possible. Alan enjoyed four years as an active DJ for a low power college station in Lincoln NE. Since the 70's his career has taken him into banking, real estate and title insurance while squeezing in a little alpine skiing and travel.
KUPR has been blessed with the archives of "Stolen Moments" from the late Simon Barley. Barley was a jazz disc jockey and concert promoter who died of liver cancer. Barley collected the best of post-war acoustic modern jazz (1944-69). He produced nearly 100 Stolen Moments programs on disc with the goal of syndication. We are working to carry on his work by reformatting as many discs as possible for airplay on KUPR every Wednesday night from 10 pm to midnight.
Bobbi Jean Bell is wild about the West! And we are wild about the vast knowledge of Western music, poetry, prose, Western Swing, Cowboy Country and more that she brings to KUPR. She hosts the Out West Hour from 4-5 pm on Saturdays. Bobbi and husband Jim moved to Albuquerque about a year ago from California where she ran a concert series. Bobbi and her Nashville-area co-host Gary Holt won the DJ/Radio Program of the Year award at the recent International Western Music Association convention in Albuquerque.
Join hosts Kitty & Mr. C in their little Tiki hut, Saturday evenings, from 5-7 pm, as they stir up the perfect sonic cocktail of sophisticated sounds from the golden & modern age of Exotica, on their show “Kitty & Mr. C’s Enchanted Tiki Hut.” Travel on a magic carpet ride to strange and mesmerizing places each week. This show incorporates exotic jungle jazz sounds, tribal percussion, Afro-Cuban, Latin rhythms, cocktail jazz, surf, Bossa nova, Kitty is an accomplished singer, having performed with Mr. C (a drummer) in jazz clubs in California. She has also performed in musical theater. Most recently she was the social media coordinator for Mr. C’s other project, a progressive rock band.
Jerry DiTata started doing radio in 2012 on WUSB in Stony Brook,NY - early mornings twice a month, filling in for other hosts, recording promos and also helping out with live sound when local performers would be featured. After relocating to New Mexico in 2014, he could be heard occasionally on KUNM during the overnight hours and since June of 2015 also has a weekly time slot on KMRD-LP in Madrid, NM. Jerry D likes to spin Jambands, Bluegrass, Americana, Album Rock that was not overplayed on commercial stations and local artists also. Happy to be part of the KUPR family, he will be interviewing local talent for the “Let’s Get Creative” show and is now hosting Saturday Afternoon Freeform at 2pm. His local artist interviews are archived here after they air.
Pam DiTata started in radio by volunteering at WUSB in Stony Brook, NY- answering phones during fundraisers, and helping Jerry Di with his shows & recording promos.She always loved radio, it was playing in the house when she was growing up, tuned to an Oldies station with fun Jingles… After they moved to NM in 2014, she would help Jerry with preparing shows for KUNM overnights, and when KMRD went on the air in 2015, she would also help and be a guest on his show there. Pam also volunteers for KUPR recording promos with Jerry. She also volunteered at KUPR fundraisers and she is also Secretary of the Council and a Council Member. A mutual friend at the station heard a promo on KUPR and said “The Voice” and that is how the her show got its name. Pam is a DJ on Sunday afternoons from 3-4 PM and the show is called “The Voice” which features a different theme each week, as part of the “Women’s Voices” block running from 3-6 PM.
Judy Fitzpatrick brings Blaze Defiant (her nam de plume) and Beyond Words to KUPR Sundays at 4 pm. She has skillfully intertwined spoken word with music to create a weekly theme that will inspire as well as entertain. Judy has edited poetry, fiction and non-fiction, been a writing instructor and published author as well as a script supervisor with two award-winning films to her credit. She is currently at work on her second novel.
X Wave is a weekly show Saturdays 8-10 pm - dedicated to underground, new wave, and alternative music from the college radio era. X Wave DJ Freeze began his on-air career at the age of 10 as host of a dial-in music request show on public access cable in Rochester, NY. His radio career follow shortly after when, in 7th grade, he began pulling records for shows on his high school’s broadcast radio station, WIRQ. He worked his way up through the ranks of DJ, Music Director, and eventually program director of WIRQ, one of the Rochester area’s premier radio stations playing new wave, underground, and alternative music. Next was college, where he majored in broadcasting and brought his radio experience to WERG in Erie, Pennsylvania, holding various positions throughout the early to mid-nineties.
Freeze is a music lover of all genes, but there is a special place in his heart for the music of his youth - the sounds of the peak college radio era. Fun fact - his first live concert was New Order, Public Image Limited, and The Sugarcubes in 1989. 
Tom Frouge joins us on Tuesday evenings 7-9 pm for The Strange Land. Tom began his music business career in 1988 as a radio host at free-form radio station WPKN-FM in Bridgeport, CT, where he also served as music director for eight years. Since then Tom has worked in most aspects of the music business (labels, management, promotion and marketing, publishing, record producing, presenting, songwriting) and is currently the Executive Director of Avokado Artists, a NM-based not-for-profit arts organization. He is currently a member of the NM Music Commission. We are proud to have Tom return to radio with KUPR - bringing a world of music, interviews and more to the airwaves. From the dusty back roads of the Americas to the dusty no-roads of the Sahara, from the streets of NOLA to the streets of Recife, from the Great Wall to the Great Pyramids, from the Seine to the Volga to the Ganges to the Hudson to the Rio Grande - and beyond - it’s a trip around a musical Strange Land.... Tom also helps organize concerts for KUPR, bringing Los Martinez, Rahim Alhaj and Lone Pinon to the community in recent years.
Ken Grimes hosts The Mystery Music Show every Thursday from 3-5 pm as well as occasionally appearing on KUPR's Friday Happy Hour. He also cohosts with his wife Lynn Kaskela a Sunday 9 am show, Morning Blends. A Chicago native, Ken attended Columbia College as a music major. A versatile musician who plays bass, six-string guitar, and keyboard, Ken has been in the music business from more than 45 years. His experience includes playing with various bands in Chicago and as a DJ for events at Top 40 clubs, weddings, special events - even roller rinks. Ken moved to Placitas in 2012 with his wife Lynne who provided the profile picture. Tune in every Thursday where "Spinnin' Kenny G" will reveal the next tantalizing musical mystery.
Dr. David Hoekenga joins KUPR Thursday evenings at 6pm beginning June 4th with Melodies from the Sandias - a selection of classical music. Following this classic music two-hours, Dr. Dave then hosts Night at the Opera and hopefully introducing you to some lesser known gems. Did you know that Dr. Hoekenga is also an author of mystery books that are available at Wild Hearts Gallery in Placitas?
Bill Honker airs the bluegrass music show Home Again at noon Saturdays. Bill is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who began playing bluegrass music in 1973. Over the years, Bill played with numerous bluegrass bands in the Texas-Oklahoma area, and he performed nationwide with Billy Joe Foster and Special Edition and with the Alan Munde Gazette. Bill played bass, sang, and contributed original material to the Gazette for twelve years, and he still performs occasionally with bluegrass banjo great Alan Munde. (The program’s theme song was written by Bill and recorded by the Gazette on their first CD.) Bill’s familiarity with the bluegrass genre and many of its great musicians provides a rich backdrop for Home Again. He currently performs with the Desert Mountain Drifters, along with Dr. Slide.
Monday nights enjoy The Jazz Groove with George Koinis from 6-9pm. Tune in Sundays at 11 am. for an hour of mandolin music, Mandolin Magic, from many genres thanks to George - a mandolin player and afficionado. George is a talented musician and past president of and advisor for the New Mexico Jazz Workshop. He has also curated and currently hosts the Eddie Chelist Music Hour at 6 pm Tuesdays with selection from the late Dr. Chelist's vast music collection donated to KUPR.
Ready for a music adventure? Tune in for Johnny Lawndart at 8pm, Wednesdays, with Hindsight - a weekly theme of underplayed and overlooked music.
Back when Datsuns roamed the earth, Lawndart was a collector of all music that was under the radar and off the grid. Shuffling and repackaging selections of his ever expanding collection into numerous mini-presentations, he labored over, what prehistoric man once called, "mix tapes". This passion for gathering only the overlooked gems for a themed presentation eventually led him straight to radio. His show "Hindsight" provides listeners with only the best of underplayed talent. Johnny promises to treat you to completely unprofessional on-air presence and clumsy commentary, but backed by the absolute best music you might have missed, and shouldn't live without. 
Sarah Lawndart has no idea into what she has gotten herself. Her one-hour Pearls show on Sundays, 5-6 pm, is full of mixed-genre music and readings. From uber-sweet to slightly raucous, folk, punk rock, alternative, oldies, newbies, ska, with a show tune here and there, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder why she played THAT song, and you’ll hopefully hear something that you never knew you loved.
Rick Lawrence has been listening to the MoTown and doo wop genres of music since he was a very young boy growing up in the New York suburbs. He learned to play guitar when he was 10 years old and one of his first songs was "teenager in love"! He will be sharing his 45 collection of oldies accumulated over the years. Rick played in several bands in high school and currently plays with another guitarist at nursing homes and assisted living facilities. With his sidekick Tim Trujillo, he brings two hours of Strolling Down Memory Lane to the air on Fridays, 1-3 pm. His new Sunday show, Country on Sunday at 1-3 pm, brings some fine classic country music to KUPR.
Dobro and Lap Steel artist, Marty Lepore, Dr. slide, brings his music collection and love of Slide Guitar to KUPR for a two hour show every Sunday afternoon from 1pm to 3pm. He has played Lap Steel and Resophonic Guitar for over 40 year, performing in a variety of bands, starting when he was 12 years old. He saw Josh Graves perform with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Reunion Band in 1974 and had to get a Dobro.It has been a lifelong passion ever since. He was a teacher with the Seattle Folklore Society, Board member of the Western Washington Bluegrass Association and soundman for the New Melody Tavern in Seattle. Winning the “Western Washington Dobro Championship” in 1995, he co-hosted the “Resomania” workshop at the award winning “Wintergrass” Bluegrass Festival in Bellevue Washington for 20 years. He has met and picked with major Dobro players from all over the world.
Moving to New Mexico in 2016, Dr. Slide brings his love and mastery of the Slide Guitar, song arranging skills, and guitar playing, to Placitas. He has a new band with fellow Placitas resident, Bill Honker. Keep on the lookout for the “Desert Mountain String Band”. Soon to be playing near you. 
Veteran broadcaster Alonzo Lucero invites you to tune in for three hours of Spanish music each weekday morning from 9:00-noon. Alonzo will both entertain you and keep you up to date on what is going on in the area. Alonzo started in radio broadcasting in 1970 in Albuquerque, and is still going strong. Out of the 10 radio and TV stations he's worked at over the years, he says he enjoys working here at KUPR the most! Tune in Wednesdays at 9 am for the Bernalillo Hour and Fridays at 9 am for Al Lucero's Corridos show. (The corrido is a popular narrative song and poetry form: a ballad, story or epic.)
Host of The Playlist, KUPR’s eclectic variety mix show Fridays at 7 pm, Brandon "Brando" McDaniel has had a passion for radio since his childhood growing up in SE New Mexico, where he would spend every Saturday night listening to the local classic rock show, Saturday Classic Rock, from 6:00PM until 2:00AM. Brando has recently been making guest appearances as the host of the local music segment of Let’s Get Creative on KUPR. When not hosting and producing content for KUPR, Brando is active in the local performing arts community as an actor and stage-director, as well as in the local music community with his alternative rock band, Port Alice.
John McNerney (who is also an engineer for the station along with Larry Wilson and Jerry DiTata) shows up Mondays at noon for two hours of Early Rock and Roll. John retired from state service in New England and moved back to his native New Mexico recently. While he was here as a young man, he was an "Announcer" on KUNM when both studio and transmitter were in the basement of the UNM Student Union and the antenna was on the roof. It broadcast on 90.1 FM. That was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. "Announcer" was euphemism for DJ; somehow DJ implied popular AM Radio in those days, an anathema to KUNM, which viewed itself as more avante guarde and played Rock and Roll, mainly tunes that you would not likely hear on AM Radio. He lives in Placitas with his wife of many years. She is a trained classical musician, but has come to appreciate some of the Rock and Roll of those days. He is also engaged in volunteering around Sandoval County, providing services similar to those he provided in his career.
Casey Mortensen joined KUPR from 8 to 10 on Friday nights as host of the two hour Roots of Indie - past and present indie music with some rock, bluegrass, and folk artists past and present deserving of radio time. Casey grew up in the country outside Idaho Falls surrounded by potato farms, although his dad was an engineer and his mother a nurse. He joined the Navy and was in Japan and California. Now he attends UNM studying archaeology, enjoys traveling and playing music. Casey says he is enjoying working with the KUPR team
Marc Robert (RoBear) joins KUPR with a Saturday 11 am show, Whiskey in the Jar, old time fiddle and traditional Irish music. Marc has been a fixture on the Placitas music scene for years, playing banjo, guitar and acoustic bass. He’s part of the Virginia Creepers, a local old time band, and also plays with his son Michel as Littlefoot (also old time) and with fiddler Eileen Sullivan as Far From Home (traditional Irish music).
After an almost 20 year absence from the airwaves, Sal Treppiedi is returning with Sounds From The Superhighway Tuesday and Thursday mornings 7-9 am. STSH is a hybrid of musical styles and genres pieced together by a common thread. Sal was born to Italian immigrant parents and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He’s worn many hats within the music business including publicist, road manager, writer and blogger. In 1981, he got his start in college radio. After moving to Albuquerque, he continued his radio days at a local sports radio station. These days, he teaches Rock & Roll History at an Albuquerque high school.
Marty Tippens is a recent transplant from Southern California where he performed as a guitarist and drummer with a host of bands including many surf music legends such as The Insect Surfers, John Blair, Paul Johnson (“Mr. Moto”) and New Mexico legend, George Tomsco (guitarist with the Fireballs who had the hit “Sugar Shack” in 1963). He disk-jockeyed for KCSN in the early 2000’s and performed on the air for Seattle’s KEXP and Loyola Marymount’s KXLU and on The Josh Gates Tonight show (Discovery Channel). His musical interests are wide, covering various forms of classical, jazz, classic rock, and country. His Monday 5 pm KUPR program, “Music of the Space Age and Beyond” focuses on artists from the early stereo era such as Juan Garcia Esquivel and Enoch Light and expands to include such hitmakers as Henry Mancini, Burt Bacharach, and The Four Freshmen.
Tim Trujillo joins Rick Lawrence on Friday at 1 pm for a Stroll Down Memory Lane and sometimes shows up as a guest host and host for KUPR's Happy Hour. He also airs at noon Fridays with a jazzy hour titled Straight No Chaser. Born and raised with pride in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of the east side of Los Angeles, Tim now proudly calls the Land of Enchantment home, as his ancestors have done for centuries before him. A love of great music flows through this bloodline, most notably from his great, great grandfather, a remarkably…fruitful blind fiddler in Taos.
A new addition to KUPR, Nick Upton and his wife Leanna moved to Placitas in May of 2020 from San Diego, California. Nick’s Lounge, heard Saturdays from 7-8pm features Lounge favorites, classic pop, rock and jazz instrumentals and who-knows-what-else! Nick comes from a 45-year career in commercial radio, spent entirely in San Diego County, on Adult Contemporary, Country and 80’s stations. Nick was Music Director for legendary Country station KSON for 14 years and Digital Manager for the station group for 25 years. Now in The Land of Enchantment, Nick and Leanna continue their quest to find new and interesting places to RV, camp and off-road.
Patrick Vanderwyden joins KUPR to host "Hidden Gems of the 21st Century" Saturday mornings from 8am to 11 am. Patrick is a New Mexico transplant from Florida in 2017, moving to Placitas in March of 2020. He has always enjoyed listening to music on the radio, and looks forward to introducing you to music he enjoys, but is missing from the playlists of most radio stations.
Bob Witter is the host of The Mix, Sunday evenings from 6-8 pm. Bob is a long-time resident of New Mexico and is a graduate of NMSU. While at NMSU, Bob joined KRWG-AM and FM as a DJ and also served as sports director. He mostly enjoyed broadcasting Aggie basketball games.
Bob’s career started as an engineer with electric utilities, then evolved into a consulting practice. He became a nationally-known forensic engineer and instructor of utility codes. While living in the Jemez Mountains, Bob was a firefighter, Battalion Chief and EMT for the Sandoval County Fire Department (District 5). He and his wife, Kathy, moved from Jemez to Bernalillo in 2013. Join Bob on Sunday evenings for two hours of oldies rock ‘n roll, big band music and doo wop. And maybe a few surprises here and there. 
On the air on Mondays from 3 pm to 5 pm with Indigenous Brilliance, contemporary Native American music, is Lyle Toledo Yazzie. Lyle is a former Park Ranger and sales clerk at Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site and now calls Placitas home where he creates a line of jewelry exhibited across the world as well as in prestigious shows like IFAM and The Heard Museum's Indian Market. We appreciate his bringing the Diné perspective to our KUPR listening audience and also learning that he is every bit as much at home with Rock and Roll as Native American music.
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