Marcus Rosario is the latest addition to join KALW’s weeknight music programming out of 25th Street Studios in Oakland. Originally from Ventura, California, Marcus has San Francisco ties and has DJed in the Bay Area over many years – one of his favorite gigs is at the California Academy of Sciences Nightlife events on Thursday nights. When he’s not on the airwaves, Marcus works for a New York-based non-profit called Building Beats, which teaches music production, DJing, and podcasting to underserved youth. We spoke to Marcus ahead of his Halloween night debut on KALW.
What was your first music memory?
For me, I’ve always liked listening to the radio and so I’ve always had ambitions and aspirations of being on the radio I think. In school, I played piano and stuff like that but then when I got to high school, I didn’t want to play music anymore. Actually, I remember I wanted to play drums but my parents wouldn’t let me so I saved up to get turntables when I was 15 years and then I would just practice and buy records. I also grew up listening to KCRW, so I would listen to Jason Bentley, Raul Campos, and Garth Trinidad, and I would listen to them religiously because they would mix songs on the radio which I thought was really cool.
What do you think it is about the radio that you connected with?
I would say the accessibility of it. You never actually know who is listening and you can connect with so many people through music. That’s why music is so great because you can just connect with so many people. Music has always been the vehicle that I’ve made friends with.
As a DJ, how do you keep things fresh and find music you want to share?
Well, there’s a number of things nowadays, but in the last six or seven years, I’ve just spent so much time on Bandcamp. But for the most part, I love listening to people’s radio shows. I’m always kind of curious about what they’re playing, and there’s DJs who put music out or DJs who put compilations out with record labels so I’m always just kind of spending a lot of time listening to the radio shows while I do work during the week and whatnot. But mostly, I would say, just digging on Bandcamp has probably been the most fruitful for the past several years.
So what can people expect from your show?
I would say a lot of different stuff. I’ll throw in some dance cuts in between some jazz; I like digging for old music as well, so it won’t be all new all the time. Just going all over the world too, like Afro drill is really popular right now and I also play a lot of Latin stuff.
When I think about my favorite DJs like Giles Peterson and those guys, they play stuff from all over, so I try to emulate them in that way. I always like to play stuff that no one else has heard before. It’s going to be really wide open, eclectic new and old stuff, not super challenging music but definitely stuff you wouldn’t normally hear on the radio.
Catch Marcus Rosario on alternate Mondays from 10 p.m. to midnight on 91.7 FM Bay Area or here on kalw.org.