\u201cFor how diverse Miami and South Florida are, things can still be pretty tribal \u2014 people have a tendency to stick to their own scenes and circles,\u201d Jolt\u2019s current Studio Manager Nick Matthews explains. \u201cAt\u00a0Jolt,\u00a0none of that really exists. It boils down to one thing: \u2018Do you love music? Come as you are.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jolt is a Journey, Not a Destination<\/p>\n
Born in Miami to a Cuban father and a Colombian mother, Caignet and his brother, Pedro, grew up steeped in sound. First, in the Magic City, where they would make curated mixtapes for their grandmother, and then in their mother\u2019s native Colombia, where they went to school from sixth through twelfth grade. It was also in the latter that Caignet\u2019s love for punk rock blossomed. (Fun fact: Alex Okendo, singer of Medellin extreme metal legends Massacre, used to tattoo Caignet.) \u201cOur friends and us had all these little bands and my mom, who worked as a psychologist, would insist we practice at her house,\u201d Caignet said by way of illustrating the supportive environment. \u201cA lot of rock bands that played in my mother\u2019s basement now tour the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2000, Caignet returned to the U.S. for college. After graduation, he tried the straight and narrow, working \u201clike a mule\u201d sunup to sundown for UPS, but even with the security and pay, the lifestyle didn\u2019t stick, and he headed back to school to study communications. \u201cI decided to follow my passion,\u201d he says, \u201cwithout looking back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caignet wanted to start his own station, but, to him, the regulatory and corporate side of traditional terrestrial radio was (apologies to Ben Franklin) two wolves and a deejay deciding what to have for dinner. During a trip to Colombia, however, Caignet ran into a guy who had hosted a big heavy metal show and was now streaming his show for a modest fee. Back in the U.S., he was introduced to a web designer. The potential for a radio station suddenly seemed within grasp \u2014 if he could just teach himself how to connect the backend server to what he had queued up to play. (He did, with only a relatively minor loss of sanity.) He built the station out in his college dorm, bought a cheap podcasting kit with a mixer, christened it Jolt after a line in an Edgar Allan Poe book \u2014 \u201ca small but potent or bracing portion of something,\u201d decrees Merriam-Webster \u2014 and started curating songs and conducting interviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He quickly came to understand he could not realize his vision alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn and I met through friends at every random music event around 2010,\u201d Stephanie Sarria says. \u201cOne day, while at Fox\u2019s in South Miami, he told me his bedroom project,\u00a0Jolt\u00a0Radio, was taking off and he needed someone to help him host shows to diversify the catalog. So, given our friendship was founded in music, I accepted and became the first radio host.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dorm got cramped quickly, however, and the Jolt crew \u2014 which also included Pedro and Jonathan Suarez \u2014 rented a space over a porn hotline and sex toy operation in Tamiami by the airport for five hundred bucks a month. \u201cThere are a lot of crazy things about that story, looking back,\u201d Caignet says. \u201cWe were basically still kids doing everything for the first time, so we assumed it was normal at the time.\u201d Serria, who eventually slid into a role as a jack-of-all-trades event coordinator, adds: \u201cWe barely had money to decorate it, but we gave it all our love. Our first logo was hand-painted by me, and the d\u00e9cor was a bit of all our homes. The recording studio was the size of an elevator, but against John\u2019s will, I managed to get full local bands, with drums and all, inside the tiny space during my radio show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The landlord eventually offered them the whole building when the sketch sexters downstairs absconded in the middle of the night and left behind their wares, but the drive out to Tamiami was already getting old \u2014 especially now that the Jolt crew was regularly DJing at Electric Pickle and Gramps<\/a> \u2014 so they took up a space at the multimedia Gab Studios in Wynwood.<\/p>\n There was a lot of beautiful synergy and cultural crosspollination there, but, well, everyone knows what happened to Wynwood. The posh transplants moved in, the rents went up. \u201cIt seemed like one day we\u2019re doing our shows in band t-shirts and shorts then going to Wood Tavern for a drink or doing taco Tuesday, fitting in,\u201d Caignet says, \u201cand the next everybody on the street is looking at us like, \u2018Who the hell are these bums?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Jolt moved into an abandoned Western Union space in the back of an Allapattah bodega. Caignet launched a show, Behind the Bodega\u2026which kept its title even when the bodega gave way to a gaggle of small art studios. It was an idyllic setup \u2014 and hardy. \u201cWe barricaded ourselves in 2017 during hurricane Irma and broadcast throughout the hurricane until the power went out,\u201d Sarria recalls. \u201cFun times!\u201d\u00a0Alas, this being Miami, Jolt got hustled out to make way for a restaurant. (Boo.) But! An artist living essentially next door had a kid and decided to move to Key Largo, giving Caignet a heads-up. (Yay.) Jolt immediately gutted her beautiful apartment<\/a> and transformed it into its endlessly cool, ultra apropos iteration that would make the perfect set for a film about broadcasting \u2014 think WKRP in Cincinnati meets High Fidelity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Photo by Mark Vonderosten<\/p>\n Think Locally, Broadcast Globally<\/p>\n At 15, Jolt Radio has more than ninety shows on its roster and a global audience. It has nurtured and raised up a generation of passionate broadcasters and shone an ever-brightening spotlight on Miami artists. \u201cI want Jolt to be a place of no pretense,\u201d Caignet says. \u201cI want it to be a place where, for one hour at a time, people come in, hang out, be creative, and introduce the city and the world to their perspective, because that\u2019s the space where cool and unexpected things happen. It\u2019s a vast world of music \u2014 share your piece of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJolt has always been about sharing music and contributing to this scene so it can stand alongside the best in the world,\u201d adds Enzo Picardi, who joined the station as a resident in 2021 and hosts the soulful dance show Working Nights. \u201cAs for the local community, I\u2019d say\u00a0Jolt\u00a0carries a lot of it on its shoulders,\u00a0both as a physical music hub and an overarching platform for shows and other projects.\u00a0We need spaces like this more than much of what we\u2019re getting in Miami these days.\u201d<\/p>\n The Flame Still Burns<\/p>\n Do things change? Of course. Adult life creeps in, however young the day job. Caignet\u2019s brother, Pedro, has a wife and child. But the pair have recently been working on a short skit \u2014aliens are en route to earth to stop this persistent, gleefully anarchial frequency that is driving their boss crazy a galaxy away.\u00a0<\/p>\n The transmitter of that frequency is \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 Jolt Radio.\u00a0Which is a roundabout way of saying the Jolt community still sees new frontiers to conquer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat started as someone\u2019s passion and hobby turned out to be the link to establish a community in Miami based in our love for music,\u201d Sarria says. \u201cWe are so happy to have shared the studio with so many great hosts, DJs, bands and guests. It fills us with excitement to craft new products, spaces, shows, and events for the community to enjoy and be part of.\u201d That will include the 15th anniversary show, she notes. \u201cYou\u2019ll definitely find me at Gramps running from room to room to dance to a bit of everyone\u2019s sets.\u201d<\/p>\n Jolt Radio 15 Year Anniversary Party. 5 p.m. Friday, November 15, at Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami;\u00a0gramps.com<\/a>.<\/a>\u00a0Tickets cost $20 via\u00a0eventbrite.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gate of history turns on small hinges, they say \u2014 and so, too, apparently does the radio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226,2310,2311,6142],"class_list":{"0":"post-40798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news","11":"tag-interviews","12":"tag-local-music","13":"tag-radio"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/dsc00137.webp\")
Jolt Radio\u2019s current location in Allapattah. <\/p>\n