{"id":492367,"date":"2026-06-14T13:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/492367\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T13:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:24:12","slug":"calif-college-kids-leaned-into-90s-morning-radio-it-became-a-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/492367\/","title":{"rendered":"Calif. college kids leaned into ’90s morning radio. It became a hit."},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s half past noon on the second Friday in June, and most of the remaining students on the\u00a0Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus<\/a> are loading up sedans with trash bags filled with dorm clothes. Others are strapping surfboards to their roof racks and greeting wobbly parents freshly arrived after a long drive, still massaging blood into their calves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another select few buzz through the heart of campus en route from the bookstore, carrying plastic-wrapped caps, gowns and sashes under their arms. Their expressions are a mix of jubilation, pensiveness and the thing you see on people\u2019s faces when they\u2019re attempting to take something in that they\u2019ve taken for granted for so long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In less than 24 hours, these students would be stepping across the threshold of the stage and setting foot off campus, emerging as alumni for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Records<\/p>\n

Records hang on the wall inside KCPR, the campus radio station at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on June 11, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE\"From<\/p>\n

From left to right, Giselle Espinoza, Felix Broach and Lulu David, three-fourths of KCPR\u2019s \u201cRadio Party\u201d morning zoo FM radio show broadcast from campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo,\u00a0in San Luis Obispo, Calif., June 12, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Inside the KCPR studio, the student-run campus radio station, veteran DJ Lulu David, otherwise known by her call sign Princess Lady, wrapped her tear-filled final set with Elliott Smith\u2019s cover of Big Star\u2019s \u201cThirteen,\u201d and Bruce\u00a0Springsteen\u2019s \u201cThunder Road.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before playing those songs, she gave shoutouts to her parents, friends and a found family of DJs at KCPR, acknowledging \u2014 like so many of her peers not only on this campus, but across the nation \u2014 the excitement, fear, trepidation and surreal nature of what\u2019s about to transpire. Only she got to do it on air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Just after the set, David sat down and talked about what life working for the station was like. Did the long-running radio station define her time in college? \u201cAll of it,\u201d she told SFGATE. David said that she was originally hesitant to come to Cal Poly from her home in Redwood City. \u201cI hadn\u2019t heard good things,\u201d she lamented. \u201cI was really scared to come here. And also, I\u2019m from the Bay \u2014 it was just a lot different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Felix<\/p>\n

Felix Broach, left, and Jeremy Okmin, one-half of KCPR\u2019s morning zoo program \u201cRadio Party,\u201din San Luis Obispo, Calif., on June 11, 2026. The show was a breakout hit for the campus radio station at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

But when KCPR came up on her initial campus tour, David recalls thinking, \u201c\u2018OK, I\u2019m putting all my, all my eggs in that basket.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI remember applying and they were like, \u2018It\u2019s really hard to do that.\u2019 I had no doubt about it. I was kind of cocky. I just knew it was going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

David is joined by Giselle Espinoza, aka Sugar Plum, who will be a senior next year and is the station\u2019s incoming general manager, and Felix Broach, aka Kvetchy Boy, two of her closest radio colleagues. The trio makes up three-quarters of a morning zoo-style a.m. drive time radio show called \u201cRadio Party,\u201d which became a breakout campus hit and garnered listeners well beyond the comfortable\u00a0Central Coast<\/a> confines of Cal Poly.<\/p>\n

The show was the brainchild of Broach. Born in Berkeley and raised in Piedmont, Broach said his first major influence was Kevin Klein, who was the drive time DJ for Bay Area-based Live 105 when he was in junior high and high school.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left to right, Lulu David,\u00a0Giselle Espinoza, Jeremy Okmin and Felix Broach of KCPR\u2019s \u201cRadio Party\u201d morning zoo FM radio show broadcast from campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Bailee Isackson<\/p>\n

Broach became obsessed with the show and the format and followed Klein\u2019s career after he moved down to LA\u2019s KROQ and started another morning talk show called the \u201cKlein. Ally. Show\u201d with co-host Ally Johnson. In the summer of 2024, after his sophomore year at\u00a0Cal Poly, Broach sent Klein a paragraph-long DM on his Instagram expressing his fandom and asking for an internship. To his surprise, Klein replied and told him to come down. By the time Broach arrived, Klein had forgotten all about his informal invite. But still, the young Broach managed to hang around the station that summer and eventually was taken into the fold at KROQ.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was just coming in every morning,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it was an incredible time, I learned so much from their producer Vanessa. \u2018Radio Party,\u2019 the whole segmentation, the structure, that foundation was built from that internship. That sarcasm, the way that segments play around local events and news come from something similar to how the Klein Ally show do [it] at\u00a0KROQ.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when we became friends, too,\u201d David said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a funny joke too, because he thought we were friends before that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left to right, Felix Broach, Lulu David and Giselle\u00a0Espinoza, three-fourths of KCPR\u2019s \u201cRadio Party\u201d morning zoo FM radio show broadcast from campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Bailee Isackson<\/p>\n

The group laughs, and it\u2019s easy to see right away how and why \u201cRadio Party,\u201d with its big-market drive time DNA, was a formula that worked at (and then transcended beyond) a college campus radio station as streams were tracked globally and regular guests from near and far would call and DM their way into the fold. What started in the winter of 2025 soon morphed into a more human, more connected and much fresher version of the format that now itinerantly roams terrestrial radio like the last of the dinosaurs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI had issues looking too much at the stats,\u201d Broach said of the early moments when the show started to take off. \u201cFor me to have these little moments with someone randomly bringing it up, it feels good. It\u2019s less of trying to put this number up, it\u2019s more of like, emphasizes the community feel of it \u2014 keeps \u2018Radio Party\u2019 in the real world, something in front of me as I walk around.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show was a well-choreographed mix of bits, interviews and live on-air mishaps that you\u2019d expect from such a crew. There were hits, like when the morning crew broke down the fact that the\u00a0$1 million spent by the university on a spring concert and campus security<\/a> instead of allowing the annual \u201cSt. Fratty\u2019s Day\u201d celebration<\/a> to happen could\u2019ve been better used to give every student free Chick-fil-A once a week for the entire school year. And, of course, misses \u2014 like a few failed \u201990s-style prank phone call segments, thwarted, of course, by caller ID, but not by lack of trying to make it go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The interior of KCPR, the campus radio station at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., June 11, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

\u201c… What\u2019s funny is usually, when the failures stack on top of one another, it creates, for, like a depth in the content that at least we get a lot of response from,\u201d Broach said. It\u2019s the connection to the listener, and each other, that made \u201cRadio Party\u201d a hit.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFelix and I frequently find that we yin-yang a lot on a lot of different things,\u201d Jeremy Okmin, aka Buckbrush, the fourth in the \u201cRadio Party\u201d quartet, told SFGATE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Okmin, who was raised in Santa Monica, said the friendship he and Broach formed outside the station and the spoken (and unspoken) rivalry between Broach\u2019s Bay Area and his LA, resonated on air for Cal Poly students, who are physically thrown together smack-dab between both. \u201cAround here, it\u2019s a huge viewpoint and the point of people coming together. I think it worked out well.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this kind of repartee, all four of them adding their points of view and backgrounds \u2014 Broach the morning zoo evangelist and group organizer, Okmin the sketch writer and the foil, David the public health major and Espinoza, the Central Valley-raised future program director who currently helps run the station\u2019s news component\u00a0\u2014 they played off one another in a way that kept the station on its toes and listeners filled with \u201cexpectation and anticipation,\u201d said Patti\u00a0Piburn, an associate professor of journalism at Cal Poly and the KCPR adviser.<\/p>\n

\"Angie<\/p>\n

Angie Stevens, aka DJ Lady Creedence, inside the campus radio station at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on June 11, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Pilburn\u00a0said this group of seniors about to graduate was a little bit different. For one, they were the first class to come out of the pandemic, when the station had shrunk down to about 11 DJs doing shows from their homes. The popularity of KCPR on campus continues to surge year over year, with more than 100 students working for the station now (even as they\u2019re about to graduate 41 seniors). She believes the success of \u201cRadio Party\u201d both on campus and well beyond is attributed not just to the quartet involved but to the culture that has evolved in the radio station in the time she\u2019s been there, starting with the 2013-2014 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen I was first the adviser, I was told this is an island of misfit toys,\u201d Pilburn told SFGATE. \u201cStudents who came here from other places and landed in SLO and found a kind of alternative space, whether it was love of music or wanting a little bit of culture in SLO. It\u2019s not entirely different now. We\u2019re self-described as \u2018Where different matters.\u2019 Now, these students are really leaning into that. We embrace diversity, we represent the queer community, anyone who feels other. We\u2019re launching Spanish-language journalism; the students have taken that motto and made it into something more meaningful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result, getting a job at KCPR has also become ultracompetitive. Both Espinoza and Broach recalled not making the cut the first time they auditioned, getting denied and then coming back with a more truthful, genuine story about who they were and why they wanted to be on the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But once they did, a kind of notoriety followed, especially because of \u201cRadio Party.\u201d They each admit that some of the world\u2019s outside pressures \u2014 usually ones that bypass most students \u2014 occasionally came crashing in. And part of those creeping existential fears, the four admitted, are the big things that are awaiting them imminently, beyond the four walls of the station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left to right, Felix Broach,\u00a0Angie Stevens and Jeremy Okmin, three KCPR DJs, pose inside the campus radio station at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on June 11, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Each said they are constantly reminded of the rolling disaster of an entry-level job market<\/a>, the hellscape of affordability and the social gloom of a modern Dark Age, ruled by tech oligarchs<\/a> disconnecting users from everyone else. Then there\u2019s the oversold guillotine blade of social media and AI dangling above all that<\/a>, threatening to end it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In ways big and small, these forces penetrated even the seemingly innocuous \u201cRadio Party\u201d bubble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s times when I\u2019ve been doing so much of our social media stuff for us, when we\u2019re really on top of the social media and it\u2019s like going and going, saying this did this well, this did this,\u201d Broach explained. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll come on the radio and I\u2019ll think so … that mindset that comes from this other platform and medium will bleed into the on-air performance,\u201d and it just will crush my self-esteem on air for half a quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can look at episodes and think: You\u2019re so locked in on social media and the perception of how you\u2019re doing, and, you know, the idea of an algorithm or some kind of formula to follow, [you\u2019re] not doing what you\u2019re supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

David agreed that when the group tried to feed some kind of algorithm, that\u2019s actually when the \u201cRadio Party\u201d lost traction. As a public health major about to depart to Baltimore\u2019s Johns Hopkins University in the fall to pursue an advanced degree in cancer epidemiology, David says that she\u2019ll continue to lean into the uncomfortable instead.<\/p>\n

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\"image\"<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel like with algorithmic content, you\u2019re fed so much of what you exactly like, forcing engagement, not having any contention with it,\u201d she said. \u201cI like it when there\u2019s contention. I kind of want, when I listen to something, for it to piss me off \u2026 I think it\u2019s interesting to me, it engages me in a way that like chill, whatever, content wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Giselle<\/p>\n

Giselle Espinoza, left,\u00a0and Lulu David, half of KCPR\u2019s \u201cRadio Party\u201d morning zoo FM radio show broadcast from campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., June 12, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Pridgen\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

The four \u201cRadio Party\u201d hosts did their last show this week and, like so many other students saying goodbye this month, expect to go their separate ways. But for a brief, important window of life, they will each have this silly morning show that somehow was streamed around the world. They agreed that this return to an analog morning-zoo program, in the middle of a studio surrounded by stacks of vinyl, was a bubble within a bubble, and unlike any experience they\u2019ll ever have.<\/p>\n

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Yes, they\u2019ll still be asked to embrace tech. Yes, they\u2019ll always prefer the pop sizzle of a record or the scratches on CDs. But they made a pact to support one another on and off air, not only during their experience in college, but wherever life takes them. And that, they said, can\u2019t ever be forced \u2014 or forced out. \u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
\u201cWe always judge an episode by how good we feel after,\u201d Espinoza concluded. \u201cWe never judge by how well it does on Spotify or how many callers we got. It\u2019s just like, \u2018Wow, that was a good episode.\u2019 If it\u2019s bad, we say, \u2018Tomorrow it\u2019ll be better.\u2019 It\u2019s all about whether we had fun or not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s half past noon on the second Friday in June, and most of the remaining students on the\u00a0Cal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409,174886,177962],"class_list":["post-492367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music","tag-sfgcentralca","tag-sfgculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}