For over 45 years, my approach to live radio has centered creative autonomy, improvisational music flow, and cultivating community.
My first radio gig began in the late 1970’s at one of the last two commercial free-form progressive rock stations in the country: WQBK-FM in Albany, N.Y.
From my earliest radio days, I was keen to create community through music. I started a listening club that would meet at my apartment called the Bill Bruford fan club. We’d get high and listen to his music for hours.
Tangents was born on KCSM in the mid 1980’s. Soon after, I started producing house concerts featuring world class musicians. I brought Tangents to KALW in 1995. It was clear listeners connected to one another through global music cultures that these house concerts brought into living rooms throughout the Bay Area.
As special as these Tangents parties were, nothing can beat experiencing live music at its source. I decided it was time to take the show on the road taking Tangents listeners with me. Thus the Tangents Turkey Music Tour was born in 2005 and transitioned to the Tangents Greece Music Tour in 2017. I conceived 11 concerts over 17 nights. We travelled the entire mainland and Crete. The impact these tours had on the participants was transformative. Musicians told me I produced concerts with artists that most Greeks did not even know existed.
Tangents travelers, musicians, and locals shared transformative moments building global community through these live music experiences. As Felipe Tejada of Takoma Park, Maryland, wrote to me, "How to express in words those experiences that change one’s life, alter one’s path, add new pleasures to living, or, most unexpectedly, open up new sensorial doors…”
I’ve come to appreciate the cohesion that’s made possible when we come together to honor our shared humanity through musical experiences. These music tours were the most unique, challenging and innovative projects of my life. I can’t imagine anything sweeter than to build community through music and travel.
After two decades, I retired the music tours at end of 2025. Tangents lives on through KALW and our commitment to spark human connection through music and culture from the Bay and across the world. You can reach me at dore.stein@kalw.org.
