Every Friday evening for a deeply immersive hour starting at 9 pm, Irving takes to the airwaves on Audiosyncracies, where he runs a fresh new playlist around a new theme each week. A collection of fun episodes filled with symbolism which recently hit 118 episodes, here’s a little more about what inspired the show and everything that goes on behind the scenes.

Tune into Audiosyncrasies every Friday 9:00 – 10:00pm!

Q: How do you typically set up for your DJ show?
A: I usually come into the studio anywhere between 15 to 45 minutes before my show. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes, which gets a little stressful. The setup itself is pretty easy! You can literally DJ from your phone if you want to. But the standard way is you have your laptop and your basic DJ software with your playlist and you can just transition things through that.

Q: How did you find out about the station?
A: I found out about the station just looking online and I really resonated with its mission statement, all the other BFF community members, and Amanda. I started at the station in 2022, so after the pandemic, nearly three years ago.

Q: Has the station changed much in that time?
A: That’s kind of the nice thing about BFF, it’s always changing. People come in, people come out, some people stay. But it just mirrors the people that are interested in it. So, yeah, it has changed, but it has still retained its own unique voice, even if it’s always evolving.

Q: Do you feel like running your show at the station has changed how you approach music?
A: Definitely. I mean, it's easy to just make playlists at home or just consume music, but if you have to physically go into a space and do things and talk about music and curate it in a different way, it makes it way more interesting. It makes you more thoughtful, makes you think about it more frequently. When I’m running the show, I’m really listening to the music and curating all of it.

Q: Are there any shows that you’d recommend, like your personal favorites?
A: There’s a lot on BFF. Katie’s my radio neighbor and we like a lot of the same music, but we also have different tastes! There’s also Casually Crying’s Sweet T, Apple Gomez’s Baydream, Trevor Schock’s Schock Treatment, and Yours Teddy with Lead Teddy! It’s mainly all the people I’ve met from BFF that I really like because they’re all great people and I want to hear what music they’re listening to.

Q: The sense of community here with all of the volunteers is really strong, how has that come about?
A: Yeah, and that’s also because people are volunteering. They show up to things, like Teddy organizing live shows, Apple interviewing people, Trevor helping out with events. So I think meeting those people in-person and making that connection is a huge part of it. It’s a really cool little symbiotic relationship where everyone’s doing what they love.

Q: What initially inspired you to start your own radio show?
A: I always wanted to do a radio show in college but was a little intimidated. After the pandemic, I decided, why not now? I found a great community at BFF. For my first year, I had a lot of friends come on as guests, which was really fun. Over time, I’ve tried to balance things and focus on specific themes and playlists with guests.

Q: What’s the thought process when you’re building a playlist over the week?
A: I usually make a bunch of different playlists depending on how I’m feeling. It ends up being like a weekly journal where I ask, “What am I feeling this week?” Some weeks I go for local music, or if I’m traveling, I focus on regional themes. It’s interesting to look back and see what I was listening to at different points in my life.

Q: Do you ever go back to the older episodes?
A: I definitely do. There’s some fun ones like when my sister visited me in SF or with friends, it’s nice to just have a one hour audio recording of us listening to music and then talking in between. It’s nice that it’s there, like a memoir.

Q: Did you start off as a DJ when you first got involved?
A: Yeah, I started as a DJ and it was just super welcoming. Amanda made it so easy. Then I think after that, they needed someone to look at the spreadsheets and that stuff, and it made sense. BFF is always looking for volunteers, so it’s always empowering. You kind of learn as you go along, so it’s been fun and really rewarding to be part of a community that empowers you to learn things and try stuff out!

Eventually you just keep doing it and you learn as you go. I think people are so afraid of falling and it’s like, no, you need to be given the power to fall and that’s totally fine!

Q: Do you feel it’s a little hard running a silly fun show during not very silly fun times?
A: Yeah, I mean there are times where it’s appropriate to feel outrage over certain things and other times to express tranquility or take time to reflect. I think it’s just important to listen and know what your body needs right now. I think earlier in the year, with the LA fires, I was listening to calm music and I decided that the playlist is going to reflect that.

Q: Do you have a message you’d like to leave to a volunteer that’s considering joining us here at BFF?

A: In times of stress and in times of dire need, you need to know that you can lean on your community. Technology is a great way to help connect people, like algorithms and AI, but it doesn’t help when you’re not feeling great.

It’s the people, the people that are literally willing to help you and put the work in. As the years go by and things process, that doesn’t change. We still just need to show up for each other and help each other out.

There’s no substitute for showing up, in whatever capacity you have, to just say, ‘I’m here.’ And I think that’s the main thing.

Check out Audiosyncrasies every Friday 9:00 – 10:00pm!